PROTOCOL
Good afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Press. It is with a great sense of duty and responsibility that I welcome you to the 2017 World Malaria Day Commemoration. This day April 25th of every year is set aside to sensitize the populace, assess government efforts at stemming the scourge of malaria and mobilize efforts against the disease. The theme for this year celebration is “End Malaria for Good”, with an accompanying slogan “What is your role?”.
The theme End Malaria for Good underscores the call to action for concrete steps to be taken individually and collectively towards ending malaria scourge in order to safeguard our physical, economic and social existence. Similarly, the slogan: “What is your role?” reiterates that every conscious effort taken, however little, moves us closer to a malaria free nation.
The theme provides us all with an opportunity to celebrate the success attained in malaria control over the past years. In addition, it provides a clarion call for all to commit themselves to advocate and solicit for support for more resources, commodities and requisite policies that will enable us defeat Malaria. The key message this year is to remind us all that, reducing and eliminating malaria creates healthier, more equitable and prosperous societies, and promotes a broadly inclusive and multi-sectoral response; we can collectively Free Nigeria of the burden of Malaria
Malaria though preventable, still remains a major Public Health problem in Africa and Nigeria in particular and constitutes a major barrier to social and economic development. Over 90% of the population in Nigeria is at risk while children and pregnant women are seen to be more vulnerable to this disease. This calls for a sober reflection and underscores the need to use the opportunity of yet another WMD to examine where we need to redouble our efforts at all levels.
Globally, 3.4 billion people are at risk of the disease malaria with 1.2 billion people at higher risk. In 2012, malaria was responsible for the death of approximately 482,000 under-five children even though an estimated 136 million Insecticide Treated Nets (ITNs) were distributed to endemic countries the same year. Thus, malaria is still a major public health concern particularly in sub-Saharan Africa especially in Nigeria.
In Nigeria, malaria is responsible for around 60% of the out-patient visits to health facilities, 30% of childhood death, 25% of death in children under one year and 11% of maternal deaths. Similarly, about 70% of pregnant women suffer from malaria, which contributes to maternal anemia, low birth weight, stillbirths, abortions and other pregnancy-related complications. The financial loss due to malaria is estimated to be about 300 billion Naira ($797 million) annually in form of treatment costs, prevention costs and loss of man-hours. “Malaria is one of the principal reasons for poor school attendance in many settings because it accounts for 13 to 15 percent of medical reasons for absenteeism from school”.
It has also been argued that there is a significant relationship between growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita and the burden of malaria. Evidence showed that 10% reduction in malaria is associated with increase of 0.3% growth per year. In addition, most of countries with high risk of malaria have also recorded lower economic growth than the rest of the world.
May I also add that the socioeconomic effects of malaria is not lost on this administration, which has prompted the restructuring presently going on within the health sector with the sole aim of ensuring effective service delivery nationwide.
The Federal Government of Nigeria through the National Malaria Elimination Programme (NMEP) has made tremendous impact and achieved remarkable targets in the implementation of its various interventions put in place to curb the menace of malaria disease. It is noteworthy that the thrust of malaria control in Nigeria is prevention through multiple strategies such as vector control and prevention of malaria in pregnancy.
In line with the global standard, Nigeria has instituted the policy of Testing before treatment with the deployment of the Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT) kits nationwide. Training and capacities of heath care providers have been built in both private and public sectors on the use of RDT. Presently diagnostic services for malaria using the test kit can be accessed cheaply at all levels of the health care delivery, most especially the community level.
Preliminary report of the Malaria Indicator Survey conducted in 2015 has the following key findings:
• 69% of households own at least one Insecticide Treated Net (ITN).
• 37% of individuals, 44% of children under 5, and 49% of pregnant women slept under an ITN the night before the survey.
• 37% of pregnant women took 2+ doses of SP, at least once during an ANC visit.
• 27% of children age 6-59 months tested positive for malaria by microscopy while 45% tested positive for malaria by RDT.
• Malaria prevalence is highest in North West—37% of children age 6-59 months tested positive for malaria.
• Overall, the prevalence rate has drop from 42% to 27% from 2010 – 2015 as reported in Malaria Indicator Survey (MIS).
It is also my pleasure to announce to you all that considerable progress and gains have been achieved in the last few years: As part of the massive prevention strategies, the Federal Ministry of Health and partners have distributed over 58.8 Million LLINs during replacement campaign that was conducted in 22 states between December 2013 – September 2016.
Permit me to say here that the NMEP has enjoyed donor support over the years especially in the areas of LLINs; this is no doubt commendable. Furthermore, Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) and Larval Source Management (LSM) are two key interventions in the current National Malaria Strategic Plans (NMSP) 2014-2020.
These interventions, alongside the Integrated Community Case Management (ICCM) and the Seasonal Malaria Chemoprophylaxis (SMC) would be scaled up for greater impact and speed towards elimination, in line with the change mantra of the present administration. I therefore call upon our partners to join hands with Government to scale up these interventions to achieve the desired impact.
Let me say here that there is global challenge to malaria control/elimination due to resistance by both the mosquito vectors to insecticides and the parasites to the anti-malaria medicines. In order to address the challenge of vector resistance to insecticides, the WHO has recommended that every country should put in place an effective mechanism for vector surveillance and insecticide resistance management.
To respond to the WHO recommendation, Nigeria has established six sentinel sites in the geopolitical zones of the country with support from PMI, while additional funds has been secured from the Global Fund under the New Funding Mechanism for the establishment of six additional sites in the country. Considering the huge size of the country, there is need to urgently establish additional sentinel sites in order to meet the demand of this strategy.
In our effort to ensure malaria commodity security and for effective treatment, we were able to distribute through the health system pipelines over 30 million doses of ACTs and over 28million units of RDTs have been procured for staggered delivery to states. Capacity has been built in 36 states including FCT on Malaria Commodity Logistic System so as to improve on the quality of consumption data that is available for decision making. States specific quantification and gaps analysis had been carried out which provides the tool for advocacy and effective planning.
The programme is coordinating and supporting effective dissemination of behaviour change communication on malaria control. In addittion to this, the Malaria Ambassadors are being possitively engaged to facilitate increased support for programme implementation. Last year, the malaria Ambassador and I lauched the engagement of Private Sector on malaria interventions.
Let me use this opportunity to commend the RBM partnership in Nigeria, in particular I must, acknowledge the immense contribution of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM), World Bank, WHO, UNICEF, DFID/SuNMaP, USAID/PMI and Implementing Partners among others; through your robust programmes lives have been saved.
Finally, I also wish to commend the rewarding partnership and support we have enjoyed with the press all of these years.
We however call for more concerted efforts to get this life saving messages out to our people. You will acknowledge that no matter how good your actions are, if people don’t avail themselves of them, there will be neither gain nor reward. This tempo needs to be sustained, I implore us to strive towards effective leadership and partnership; this is what will give the needed leverage to free Nigeria and indeed Africa of malaria.
I call on you all to participate actively in the 2017 World Malaria Day celebration as we continue in our effort towards a malaria free Nigeria.
Thank you and God bless you.
Professor Isaac F. Adewole, FAS, FSPSP, FRCOG, DSc (Hons)
Honourable Minister of Health
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