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Nigeria: Malaria - Country Will Not Meet the 2010 Target
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Daily Trust (Abuja)
25 April 2008
Posted to the web 25 April 2008
Ruby Rabiu And Ruqayyah Yusuf Aliyu
Nigeria may not be able to meet the stipulated date of 2010 set by African nations to eradicate malaria from its shores.
The national coordinator of the roll-back-malaria programme, Dr Yemi Sofola, speaking on behalf of the Health Minister, said with two years to the set date, many are still dying from the disease which has no found vaccine.
She however said that 2013, the new date, Malaria would no longer be found on Nigeria's shores.
The National Coordinator was speaking at a discussion with journalists organised by Internews/ENHANSE project aimed at proferring possible ways of channelling government, the people in the right direction.
Dr Sofola who revealed that the country is presently losing about N132bn to the disease, said 2010 is not feasible for Nigeria as a lot needs to be done if malaria is to be eradicated from the country.
The coordinator observed that although a lot have been done to lessen the burden of the disease through treatment and preventive measures, people continue to die in large numbers across the country.
She added that it was better to prevent the disease from occurring rather than treat it but stressed that there was no vaccine to stop the spread of the disease.
'There is no known vaccine as yet, although a little breakthrough is being recorded in Mozambique, the vaccine is going through trials now, but unfortunately it has been said to work only for children.'
'the scientists are working round the clock to look for the best methods to administer the drugs, the storage facilities and other important features before it is brought to the market. So it will take time', Sofola said.
According to Sofola, government is presently faced with many challenges, inability to provide the treated nets to rural areas which are not easily accessible, breakdown in communication on ways to adequately educate the people on the best methods to protect themselves from the virus and adequate distribution and provision of the drugs meant to cure the disease.
She pointed out that there are five brands of the mosquito nets which have already been registered with NAFDAC, but are not accessible because the packaging and storage facilities for the nets are quite difficult and expensive.
She revealed that the burden of the disease is greatly felt in the rural areas who are under the supervision of the state or local governments who are also bedevilled by inadequate facilities in hospitals, lack of doctors, drugs and others.
Speaking on the progress made by the federal government, Sofola lamented that a lot of people believe that eradicating the disease is government's responsibility and so fail to contribute in anyway or adhere to simple rules that would have helped prevent the virus from spreading.
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Calling for contributions from stakeholders in the industry, Sofola added that serious and drastic measures need to be put in place to ensure that all Nigerians are made to sleep under mosquito nets.
She said for them to meet the new target of 2013, about 80% Nigerians should have long lasting insecticidal treated mosquito nets in their homes and made to use them.
She advised that clean environment should be kept. 'Make sure that no grass or stagnant water is visible around residential areas while malaria treatment is to be adequately supervised by professionals'.
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| Copyright © 2008 Daily Trust. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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