Abuja - Nigeria — ECOWAS and the government of Nigeria’s Rivers State are pooling resources in support of the ECOWAS Campaign to eliminate malaria in the West Africa by 2015, through the strengthening of vector control intervention.

The partnership involves the mobilization of funds from the Venezuelan government and the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID) to build a biolarvicide production factory in Rivers State under the Tripartite Agreement involving ECOWAS, Cuba and Venezuela. To this end, Rivers Governor Chibuike Rotimi Ameachi, who is also Nigeria’s Malaria Ambassador, was received by the Vice-president of the ECOWAS Commission, Dr. Toga McIntosh on behalf of the President at the Commission’s Abuja headquarters on Thursday 18th of October 2012.

During the meeting, the two sides agreed to mobilize financial resources from the Venezuelan government and the EBID for the establishment of the biolarvicide factory in River State in 2013 by Cuba’s Labiofam firm for the supply of the product to Nigeria and other ECOWAS member States. Official statistics show that a child dies every 30 second in Africa from malaria, which also kills more than 10,000 pregnant women and 200,000 of their infants every year in the continent, with the burden heaviest in West Africa.

This grim picture coupled with the fact that malaria accounts for around 40 percent of public health expenditure in endemic countries, and costs Africa some 12 billion US dollars in lost productivity make the support for the ECOWAS Malaria Elimination Campaign all the more compelling. It also underscores the need for all stakeholders – governments, the media, civil society organizations, NGOs and Community citizens – to play their part in the collective drive to rid West Africa of the mosquito-borne scourge.