Combating malaria through preventive approach, by Remi Adeleke
It is quite shocking to read from the Guardian Newspaper of April 25, 2023, that Nigeria spends as much as N2.04 trillion annually to combat malaria, but despite these colossal resources committed, thousands of Nigerians are still dying of malaria.
Nigeria suffers the world’s greatest burden of malaria with approximately 51 million cases and 207,000 deaths reported yearly. Malaria remains a significant burden in Nigeria, particularly in pregnant women and children under the age of 5 years.
It could be deduced from the above highlight that Malaria is not only a public health challenge, but its direct and indirect impact on the economy also cannot be overemphasized considering the health care expenditure as well as the attendant impact like waning productivity occasioned by illness and death. It also affects foreign investment and tourism significantly.
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Some researchers have also corroborated the above exposition that malaria is not only a public health challenge, that its consequence on the economy is too distinctive to be ignored. In the Nigerian communities where malaria is endemic, the impacts are loss of resources, time, the health of household members and in the worst cases death. The researchers stressed further that 97% of Nigerians live at risk of malaria and 76% in high transmission areas; 50% of the population is estimated to have at least an episode of malaria yearly. An insight into the ailment of malaria revealed that it is caused by a parasite called Plasmodium. Anopheles mosquito is the vector that carries the Plasmodium parasite. The egg larva that metamorphosed to a mosquito is found in waterlogged areas gutters and broken bottles or cans. Some social thinkers have posited that the 1st stage of insanity is doing the same things the same way over the years and expecting different results. If over the years colossal resources have been expended in combating malaria without commensurate results is it not high time we re-strategise our approach of intervention from curative to preventive for a better result? It is a fact that various mass housing initiatives to provide decent houses to Nigerians have always been a drop in the ocean or more effective in rhetoric than in practice. To this end, emphasis should focus more on a preventive approach that facto-factoring kind of habitation or environment in whichwhichrianslived. It is evident that poverty is a major factor in malaria prevention and poor habitation is a function of poverty. The more urban an area is, the lower the cases of malaria. Over 70% of Nigerians are poorly sheltered and as such reside in either weedy, waterlogged or areas with blocked drainages. These are veritable sources of larvae that eventually metamorphosed into mosquitos. On the above premise, if N500 billion ie about half of the N2.04 trillion is expended annually on the construction of culverts and gutters in all communities nationwide, it is expected that malaria cases would be reduced considerably. The States and local governments should complement the Federal Government by involving development control. Their involvement in assisting and ensuring that individuals built standard gutters and drainage systems around their habitation would go a long way in reducing cases of malaria in the country. The defunct sanitary inspectorate system should be resuscitated as well in all local Governments Areas to ensure that Nigerians keep their environment clean. With this preventive approach, there would be no place for anopheles mosquito to thrive and malaria cases would be reduced to a tolerable and inconsequential level.
Remi Adeleke writes from PDP Quaters, Suleja, Niger State.
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