|
|
Nigeria: UNICEF , W'bank Seek Sustained Action on Malaria
 |
 |
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
This Day (Lagos)
10 May 2008
Posted to the web 12 May 2008
Onwuka Nzeshi
Abuja
United Nations' Childen's Fund (UNICEF) Exe-cutive Director, Ann Veneman, has sued for the cooperation of countries around the world in the fight against malaria.
She described as unacceptable the fact that the disease still kills more than one million people, mostly children, every year even as it is curable, preventable and can be controlled. Veneman lamented that despite the increased use of insecticide-treated nets in 16 of the 20 African countries where the scourge is endemic the disease was yet to be eliminated.
The plea for co-operation is coming on the heels of the pledge by the World Bank to deploy about $180million towards the fight against malaria in Nigeria.
World Bank Senior Health Specialist in Nigeria, Dr. Ramesh Govindaraj stated this at the World Bank Malaria Day event in Abuja.
Govindaraj said the funds which is a sector investment loan will be used to support anti-malaria programmes in seven states acros Nigeria.
The beneficiary states include Bauchi, Gombe, Jigawa, Kano, Anambra, Akwa Ibom and Lagos.
In a message to mark the First World Malaria Day, UNICEF said while the disease is endemic in 107 countries and territories, it is a disease that has no respect for national boundaries and therefore, needed to combated with all the resources at the disposal of the world.
"Increased global awareness about malaria has contributed to a significant rise in available resources over recent years, thanks to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, the US President's Malaria Initiative, the World Bank, UNICEF and others.
These funds are now facilitating the rapid improvements and scaling-up of malaria intervention coverage. Since 2003, most African countries have switched to the more effective World Health Organisation-recommended Artemisinin-based Combination Therapy (ACT) to treat malaria. There has been a significant increase in global ACT production, from less than four million treatment doses in 2004 to over
100 million in 2006," Veneman said. UNICEF, she said, has procured and delivered over 18 million long lasting insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) in 2007 with more than 90 per cent of these distributed to pregnant women and young children as part of integrated programmes that include antenatal care and immunisation.
She also disclosed that over the last three years,18 million long-lasting insecticidal nets that protect against malaria have been distributed in Ethiopia while in Kenya, 10 million nets have been distributed in the past five years. According to her, interventions must be further scaled up, sustained
financing must be made available, and community involvement and leadership must be encouraged, alongside stronger global, regional and national partnerships if malaria is to be eradicated.
|
The World Bank, Govindaraj said, has doubled its funding for the fight against malaria in Africa with the approval of US$180 million to combat the disease in Africa's most populated country, Nigeria.
The US$180 million in interest free loans from the International Development Association (IDA) will go to a five-year project which will support the government's program to cut annual Nigeria's malaria cases in half by 2010.
The Nigeria Malaria Booster Control Project is part of the Bank's Booster Program for Malaria Control in Africa launched in 2005 to reduce malaria in about 21 of Africa's most seriously affected countries.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 2008 This Day. 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. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | Subscribe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
