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Tag: malaria

  • Towards malaria eradication

    Towards malaria eradication

    To boost the fight against malaria, the government has unveiled the guideline for the engagement of the private sector. OYEYEMI GBENGA-MUSTAPHA was at the launch.

    With the unveiling of a document entitled: “Engaging the private sector to eliminate malaria in Nigeria,” the fight against malaria has received a huge boost. The document is a support plan of the Federal Government on partnering with the private sector  to end the malaria scourge by the year 2020.

    It was launched at the Four Point by Sheraton, Victoria Island, Lagos. The launch attracted captains of industry, high ranking government officials, healthcare givers and other stakeholders.

    At the event, the Minister of Health, Prof Isaac Adewole, said there was an increasing demand by development partners for domestic funding for malaria. To achieve this, the public-private partnership is crucial and needs to be properly coordinated, he added.

    According to him, a multi-pronged approach is required to eradicate malaria from Nigeria.

    Adewole said:”I am confident that we can collectively work to achieve the objectives of this document, thereby preventing our people from dying from malaria blight.

    He said despite the large volume of mosquito nets distributed, the prevalence of malaria was still high in the country, urging the private sector to consider seriously the local production of mosquito nets.

    He said: “We cannot afford to be importing nets, they  can be produced in Nigeria and the market is huge. We need about 30 million nets every year in Nigeria. A net has a life span of about three years and if you compute on the basis of one net for two people, Nigerians would need 90 million nets over three years.  Every year, we need to replace 30 million nets, so there is a huge market apart from opportunities for export.”

    The launch of the document was spearheaded by the Dangote Foundation.

    The collaboration with the OPS, Adewole said, became imperative given the fact that 30 million nets used annually as well as over 80 per cent of the anti-malaria medicine are  imported.The need arises therefore  for local production of these materials.

    He said: “We have engaged in series of advocacy which has yielded results, but advocacy is not enough, many people would have been bitten before coming under the insecticide treated nets .We need research and we realised we can’t do it alone, which is why we are engaging the private sector.We need their discipline and efficiency and in the local production of the medicine because that can generate employment in the country.”

    He said over the last decade, substantial progress had been made in the control of malaria through significant investment by the government and development partners. Also, supply and distribution of anti-malaria commodities has increased nationwide.

    According to Adewole, over 100 million long-lasting insecticide treated nets were distributed in the past seven years to protect over 28 million of the 33 million households in the country.

    Stakeholders in the task of eliminating Malaria by 2020 code named ‘Malaria to Zero’  have made case for the Organised Private Sector to join the movement and save lives of Nigerians and spare the nation of an estimated annual loss of $2.4 billion.

    Taking the centre stage at the event, the National Malaria Ambassador,   Aliko Dangote, said with 25 percent of the world’s disease burden for malaria, Nigeria had experienced and continued to experience significant financial and human costs .

    Dangote said over N350 billion was lost annually due to workplace and school absenteeism as well as high treatment costs.

    “This is hardly surprising as 97 percent of Nigerians are at risk of malaria infection, with 60 percent outpatient visits and 30 percent of hospitalisations due to the disease. It is estimated that approximately one to five percent of Nigeria’s GDP is lost on account of malaria. This is a sharp deterioration to tax revenue and business development. If we can invest in the prevention of malaria then that will be a good business investment. More people will report to work, work efficiently, be more productive and huge revenue saved to the company’s coffer and tax system,” said Dangote.

    He lamented the effect of the disease on the nation and economy, saying “in addition to direct costs to business and the economy, it indirectly damages the economy through the deterioration of human capital, the loss in saving, investments and tax revenues. This is clearly too high of a cost to society and to the economy.”

    Dangote stated that Nigeria’s transition from malaria control to elimination provided a compelling opportunity for the country to reflect on its aspirations, take stock on progress and inspire bold, innovative approaches and complementary public-private partnerships to disrupt poor malaria outcomes.He added that the private sector could play an important role in mobilising domestic resources, capabilities, innovation and advocacy platforms to catalyse progress in achieving Nigeria’s malaria pre-elimination agenda.

    To lead the private sector in this collaborative effort, Dangote said he was committed to using his conglomerate, the Dangote Group of Companies, as an example of what companies in Nigeria should be doing.

    He said henceforth, there would be “malaria education for my staff at all of our business locations, distribution of prevention tools and supplies to our workers in the factories and in the fields.”

    Dangote said he co-founded the Private Sector Health Alliance of Nigeria (PHN), which is focused on mobilising the private sector, across one coordinated platform, to leverage private sector capabilities, advocacy, innovation and resources to complement government efforts in advancing health outcomes.

    Dangote urged more private sector leaders and companies to join the Malaria to Zero campaign, to pool resources, have impact at a scale greater than underlying corporate initiatives against malaria.

    He promised to continue  drawing attention to the fight against malaria, disclosing that he had accepted an invitation from Bill Gates and Ray Chambers to join them on the End Malaria Council.

    Some prominent people he brought on board, according to him, included Mr. Bill Gates, Mr. Jim Ovia (co-chair), Mr. Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede (founder, Access bank), Mr. Herbert Wigwe (CEO, Access bank), Dr. Muhammad Ali Pate (co-chair), Mrs. Sola David Borha, and others.

    The strategic document was unveiled by all stakeholders, including captains of industries, representatives of health organisation agencies, Nigerian Medical Association as well as NGOs in health-related affairs.

    Those present at the unveiling were unanimous on the fact that while the National Malaria Strategic Plan (2014-2020) is a good one, the gains of the past years must be sustained, care must be taken to ensure transition from malaria control to elimination in the country, which could only be achieved with adequate collaboration between government and private sector.

  • TAF tasks Africa on malaria

    Joining the effort to eradicate malaria from Africa, TheatreMania Africa Festival (TAF) has announced plans to launch its advocacy initiative; Africa Rise against Malaria (ARAM).

    According to information, TheatreMania Ambassadors; Akin Lewis, Norbert Young, Doris Simeon, Owen Gee (Nigeria), Thandekile Grace Maseko, Sibongile Maria Phakathi (South Africa), Zani Michelle Chiumia, a.k.a Zani Challe (Malawi), and Uncle Ebo Whyte (Ghana), will join other hundreds of theatre groups across Africa to give voice to the campaign.

    Together, they will be creating awareness, impacting and intervening in the movement against malaria in five countries namely Malawi, Kenya, Ghana, South Africa and Nigeria from December, 2016 as part of the build-up activities for the TAF March, 2017 event.

    The group, according to information, will be donating and distributing Insecticide Treated Malaria nets (ITM nets) and mosquito repellant to pregnant women, children, and hospitals during her visits to orphanages, general/public hospitals, ante-natal clinics, primary and secondary schools as well as drugs and insecticides across the shortlisted Africa countries.

    CEO and Co-Founder of TAF, Mr. Alayande Stephen, stated that according to the United Nations, every two minutes, a child dies from malaria.

    “The centre for Disease Control And Prevention also states that 3.2 billion people live in areas at risk of malaria transmission in 106 countries and territories, putting Africa on the fore-front on that list, so, we at TheatreMania Africa thought to ourselves and said we have to contribute our quota to this effort; hence, we stepped up to tackle Malaria through our advocacy initiative christened Africa Rise Against Malaria (#ARAM) with fusion of drama sketches, dances and skits” he averred.

    The programme will also feature a peace walk around cities with distribution of fliers/stickers relevant to the campaign while there will also be intermittent short mobile drama skits/sketches and dances to entertain the people.

    TheatreMania Africa Festival is an annual gathering meant to celebrate the crème-de-la-crème of stage and on screen African acts, blacks in Diaspora and other stakeholders in the Africa entertainment industry.

  • Malaria claims 48 lives in Sokoto – Official

    An outbreak of malaria has claimed no fewer than 48 lives in Gandu area, Sokoto North Local Government of Sokoto State in the last one month.

    The Officer in Charge of Kofar Kade Clinic, Mrs Rabi Ahmed-Gandi, disclosed this in Sokoto on Friday when she received the second consignment of free anti-malarial drugs from the State Government.

    She said: “These deaths were recorded out of the 382 patients who were hospitalised in the hospital during the period under review.

    “The problem had hitherto reached an epidemic level, although it had subsided now.”

    She attributed the problem to the contamination of the environment sequel to the prevalence of toxic refuse heaps.

    Ahmed commended the state government for its swift intervention, saying that it has helped to stabilise the ugly situation.

    The state Commissioner for Health, Dr Balarabe Kakale, said that the state government had provided essential drugs and medicament to the area.

    Kakale further said that health personnel have also been dispatched to the affected area to augment the staffers at the clinic.

    He said: “The Ministry has also commenced a fumigation exercise against mosquitoes.

    “In the same vein, sanitary inspectors have been deployed to the affected areas to help in the clean up.

    “They are also conducting social mobilisation campaigns on the need for the residents to ensure environmental and personal hygiene.

    “We are also partnering the Ministry of Environment and the State Environmental Protection Agency, to team up and evacuate the killer-heaps of refuse.”

     

     

     

     

  • Nigeria Prize for Science: Search for solutions to Malaria continues next year

    As the world continues to search for a lasting solution to the Malaria scourge, the Advisory Board of the Nigeria Prize for Science sponsored by Nigeria LNG Limited (NLNG) has announced the extension of the search for solutions to 2017 competition, after the evaluation of 15 entries submitted for this year’s prize.

    With this year’s theme: “Innovation on Malaria Control”, the extension is the first since the competition began  in 2014.

    The Advisory Board for the Science Prize, led by Prof. Akpoveta Susu, announced the decision to carry over the theme to 2017.

    Prof Susu said: “After a thorough evaluation of the fifteen (15) entries received, it was decided that the theme be repeated and the call for entries extended for another year.”

    Reacting to the verdicts, the General Manager, External Relations at NLNG, Kudo Eresia-Eke, said: “The decision to extend the call for entries for the Science Prize is a welcome development as it provides an opportunity for Scientists who might have missed the initial call the opportunity of making submissions while those who had earlier applied can resubmit more robust entries. Hopefully at the end of the exercise next year we would get a result that would be very qualitative and valuable for Africa and the world.”

  • ‘Adopt Rapid Diagnostic Test for malaria’

    ‘Adopt Rapid Diagnostic Test for malaria’

    Nigerians have been urged to adopt either a Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT) or parasite-based diagnostic testing (microscopy) before treating malaria.

    According to the National Malaria Elimination Programme (NMEP), the Department of Public Health, National Malaria and Vector Control Division, Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH), this is part of the guideline to ensure that Nigerians treat the disease properly.

    NMEP made this known at a forum with the media at the Lagos Sheraton Hotel, Ikeja.

    The RDT is a 10-minute test and highly effective for determining malaria parasite, NMEP said.

    NMEP National Coordinator Dr Audu Bala Mohammed said poor malaria diagnosis and drug resistance had become worrisome. However, testing with RDT before treating enables health workers to confirm if the fever condition is a symptom of malaria or some other disease.

    “It helps to save money that would have been spent on wrong treatment, if the client is negative for malaria. Use of the Rapid Diagnostic Test ensures rational use of anti-malaria, thereby limiting waste, and it avoids drug resistance,” said Dr Mohammed.

    A professor of Medicine, Jane Ajuluchukwu, said typhoid is caused by faecal matter and not malaria.

    “Hence it is good to know the source of water being used for cooking, because it is possible there is a contamination from a soak-away and the source of water for household use. The cook or chef should also be scrutinised because such may not be observing personal hygiene or hand washing, so faecal matter may move from that hand or finger nails into food and then consumed leading to typhoid,” she said.

    NMEP Deputy Director and Head, Advocacy Communication and Social Mobilisation (ACSM), Mrs Itohowo Uko, said the advocacy was to ensure Nigerians do not walk into any drug outlet to request for anti-malarial because, “use of Rapid Diagnostic Test ensures malaria is treated only when medically necessary, i.e, when client has tested positive for malaria, as it helps avoid drug resistance in individuals and across the country,” she said.

    Mrs Uko said fever is one of the  symptoms of malaria, lamenting that research has shown that the majority of Nigerians treat fevers with anti-malarial medicines without consulting a health provider and testing with RDT or microscopy to confirm malaria.

    ‘’RDT is an easy, safe and effective way to confirm whether the fever is malaria. This can prevent clients from wasting time and money,’’ she said.

    The Society for Family Health and the NMEP have raised the alert on the consequences of neglecting malaria, calling on the media to emphasise the disease and make it a matter of national concern.

    SFM Managing Director Bright Ekeremadu urged the media to consider it a  responsibility to draw the attention of Nigerians to malaria.

    Nollywood star Kate Henshaw promised to support the malaria advocacy programme. She decried the attitude of Nigerians who look down on the sickness or consider it with condescending familiarity despite the harm it causes.

    She said: “In those days, people spoke about malaria as if it belonged to them with expressions like ‘I have malaria,’ ‘my malaria’ and ‘ordinary malaria.’

    ‘’Surprisingly, after many years, these terms are still common place among family members, colleagues, and friends, irrespective of class or level of education. I have committed myself to support the fight against malaria in Nigeria by letting people know the benefits of sleeping inside the Long-Lasting Insecticidal Nets, especially for children under five and pregnant women. It is also very important to have a Rapid Diagnostic Test done or microscopy done to be sure it is malaria before administering treatment with Artemisinin-based Combination Therapy (ACT).”

     

  • ExxonMobil support malaria with $150m

    ExxonMobil support malaria with $150m

    Oil giant, ExxonMobil has contributed more than $150 million towards the fight against malaria in Nigeria, it was learnt yesterday.

    According to Mr. Paul Arinze, General Manager Public and Government Affairs said the oil giant since 2000, malaria supported programs have reached more than 83 million people in Africa and the Pacific Rim.

    Arinze who spoke at the formal closure of the third year, Nigeria Power Forward Pilot Program which is aimed at promoting healthy lifestyle amongst the youth, also revealed that they have distributed more than 13.1 million bed nets, 1.7 million anti-malarial treatments and 942,000 diagnostic tests through the programme.

    The 2016 final was graced by former National Basketball Association (NBA) player Kelenna Azubuike

    “On average, ExxonMobil Foundation has contributed more than $150m towards the fights against malaria, demonstrating ExxonMobil’s commitment to developing sustainable, long-term community assistance initiatives in Nigeria

    “Since 2000, ExxonMobil-supported malaria programs have reached more than 83 million people in Africa and the Pacific Rim. These efforts have distributed more than 13.1 million bed nets, 1.7 million anti-malarial treatments and 942,000 diagnostic tests.”

    Speaking on the program, Arinze said the Project which was initiated 2013 in partnership with the US-based National Basketball Association (NBA) and Africare aimed at implementing a youth development program that incorporates both life-skills training and public health education, using the convening power of basketball has impacted more than 2000 students.

    He stressed that the “Power Forward Project also supports the Nigerian Federal Government’s National Malaria Control Programs’ advocacy on youth development and public health.

  • N5,000 tax enough to save a child from malaria, says FIRS chief Fowler

    N5,000 tax enough to save a child from malaria, says FIRS chief Fowler

    A tax of N5, 000 is enough to save the life of a child who has malaria from death, Executive Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Mr. Tunde Fowler, has said.

    Fowler recalled how the establishment of a connect between tax contribution of as little as N5, 000 and the life of a child, who may die from malaria, touched the hearts of some taxpayers who became compliant taxpayers in Lagos, when he held the forte as the chairman of the Lagos Internal Revenue Service (LIRS).

    In a statement, FIRS spokesman Wahab Gbadamosi said the FIRS chief made his observation in Accra at the Annual Tax Conference of the Chartered Institute of Taxation, Ghana (CITG), where Fowler was also given an award as a Honourary Fellow of the institute.

    Fowler noted that every kobo contributed by a taxpayer – even as little as N5, 000 – is enough to stop the death of a child from malaria.

    He told tax practitioners and administrators, from Ghana, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Cote D’ivoire and other parts of the West African sub-region that beyond deploying the law, enforcement, technology and mobilisation, tax administrators must deploy a medley of psychology, persuasion and being firm to convince citizens to pay tax and to fund their country’s development.

    The statement quoted Fowler as saying: “When you ask people to pay tax, they ask you: ‘Why?’ But when you tell them that a tax of N5, 000 is enough to safe a child from dying from malaria, their attitude about tax begin to change gradually. As a tax administrator, you have to become a teacher to save the life of a child.

    “The point is that as tax administrators, we must see the work that we do, not just as another job, but as nation building. Tax collection is nation building. It is serving your nation. It is serving God.

    “When you convince a taxpayer that the tax he/she pays could save the life of a child who has malaria from death, you could begin to touch the taxpayer’s heart.

    “Before the law changes, tax administrators, need to wear the hat of a teacher, a psychologist, a friendly person and a firm upholder of the law.

    “All stakeholders must be conscious of our roles in ensuring that Africa catches up with the rest of the world in moving away from dependence on resource revenue towards dependence on taxation as the primary source of funding for our development.”

    The FIRS chief was said to have expressed concern that no member of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC – with all their wealth – belongs to the league of developed countries.

    “Today”, he noted, “Venezuellans queue for food. It can be argued that the extent to which an economy is able to grow sustainably and develops depends to a large extent on its ability to generate tax revenue to finance its expenditure and the efficiency if its tax system.

    “Even in Nigeria, oil, gas and mining sector (6.48) is not the biggest contributor to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $422.59 billion dollars. The sector takes the third place after Trade (19.15) and Agriculture (19.0).”

    Fowler, who stated that governments fund budget either by levying taxes or borrowing, noted that whatever tax collectors do must still be within the ambit of the law.

    He observed that “though tasking, it is still possible to collect taxes with existing laws”, describing  obsolete laws and challenging law amendment processes as some of the challenges to tax legislation in Africa.

     

     

  • Sustain the gains on AIDS, TB and Malaria

    Atinuke recently completed her national youth service having graduated from the University of Ibadan in 2014 where she read Pharmacy. She was born HIV positive in 1990. Now 26, she has lived with the disease all her life. She had once coped with TB co-infection but being the fighter she is, had beaten TB hands down. Both her father and mother are also HIV positive, everyone is fine now, with undetectable viral loads, a clear indication of the progress in HIV/AIDS treatment.

    Atinuke and her family represents a generation of Nigerians whose lives were shaped by HIV/AIDS in its entirety, and they come not in small numbers, with 3.4 million Nigerians projected to be living with HIV/AIDS. For Atinuke and others in her shoes, they got a second shot at life and are able to live productive lives because of the programmes being supported by the Global Fund which provides treatment ensuring they can have children of their own who are free of the burden of the disease. It is instructive to note that several others are not as lucky as Atinuke, lacking every access to the life-saving treatment they require.

    HIV/AIDS remain a major development crisis. Since the pandemic began, it has killed millions, separated families, and destroyed and impoverished communities. In some countries, life expectancy has fallen by more than 20 years. The scale of the epidemic is causing informal social safety nets to collapse. Overall, health care is under pressure as health services struggle with mounting demand. Workforces are being decimated, with severe consequences for investment, production, and per capita income while posing as a severe threat to global health, development, and security.

    In retrospect, we have to appreciate the tremendous progress that has also been made in the fight against the three diseases achieving life-saving impacts that were unthinkable at the turn of the millennium. In 2000, just 50,000 people were receiving antiretroviral (ART) therapy in sub-Saharan Africa, but by 2011, it had climbed to over 7 million. Now, more than 17 million lives have been saved. Current projections show that more than 2 million lives are being saved each year. About 8.6 million people are receiving lifesaving antiretroviral therapy for HIV and 16 million people with HIV-TB co-infection have been treated. Nearly 3.3 million mothers have received treatment to prevent the transmission of HIV to their babies and 560 million people with malaria have been treated.

    However, if global funding for HIV / AIDS and TB were to remain static as we are currently experiencing, some of the consequences would include: 2.6 million new HIV infections every year, of which 1.3 million could be averted through scale-up. In total 3.9 million new HIV infections was projected for the period 2014-2016 and $47 billion of costs throughout the lifetimes of those additional people infected. Three million less people will be treated for TB and one million lives would be unnecessarily lost with uncontrollable multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) if we don’t treat TB now for as little as $30 per patient because MDR-TB can cost up to 1000 times more to treat. It will also mean 196,000 lives lost to Malaria per year and 430 million malaria cases that could have been prevented, according to Cost of Inaction, a report on how inadequate investment in the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria will affect millions of lives across the globe.

    It is crucial to acknowledge that the fatigue in donor replenishment of the Global Fund is coming at a time that experts have suggested offers the most hope in the fight against HIV, TB and malaria. It therefore goes to show that the Global Fund needs a robust infusion of pledges from traditional donor countries most notably world economic powers such as Germany and China, to successfully hit, and hopefully exceed, the fundraising target of $13 billion for the Fifth Replenishment Round.

    It is in this regard that we must acknowledge the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) and its global partners on the launch of The Fund campaign targeting countries like Germany, Japan and China to act in the interest of humanity and increase their contributions to the Global Fund. Across AHF country programmes, Nigeria inclusive, various activities have been launched, ranging from advocacy meetings with country reps at various embassies to staging press conferences to put the issue on the global agenda and highlight the sense of urgency.  In May, Japan announced a contribution of $800 million for the fifth replenishment of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria which shows AHF’s effort and messages is reverberating.

    Nowhere else can the Global Fund’s impact be louder than Nigeria where the Fund has provided HIV care and treatment to 750,000 people, ensuring TB treatment to 310,000 as it provided 93.4 million mosquito nets to households to ward off malaria. Nigeria also currently represents the Global Fund’s largest portfolio with a total of $1.1 billion allocated to fighting the three diseases from 2014-2016. Unfortunately, since 2010, the Global Fund has never achieved its targeted funding. Therefore, increasing and sustaining the funding to the Global Fund is imperative to sustaining the gains achieved over the last decade, and the last few years in particular.

     

    • Aborisade is Founder/Coordinator, Projekthope.
  • Nigerians don’t present malaria cases on time

    Nigerians don’t present malaria cases on time

    Dr. Festus Uriri, a medical doctor at the Military Hospital, Yaba, Lagos, speaks on the persistently high rate of malaria infection and death, the apathetic attitude of Nigerians towards the disease and the need to take it more seriously.

    Why is malaria suddenly resistant to drugs?

    When you talk of an organism being resistant to a particular drug, number one, it has to be due with abuse of that drug; I mean people using it too regularly without recourse to doctor’s prescription. If you’ll recall, in those days, we used chloroquine and it was very effective in treating malaria. But when it was becoming less effective, we introduced quinine for resistant malaria. With the advent of modern medicine, we came into the age of ACT, Atemisinin Combination Therapy. It’s actually a combination therapy. This combination has to do with artemether and Lumefantrine in different proportions. In some, we have them in single dose while in some; we have them in double dose. Another reason for the parasite resisting the drugs is the use of substandard anti-malarial medications. Some dealers will just go out to countries where they manufacture these drugs and deliberately instruct them to lower the standard. If for instance Atemisinin, Lumefantrine combination is supposed to be 40, 80; they will tell them to make it 20, 40; but they will write 40, 80 on the drug to deceive people. This is cheaper on purchase and naturally earns them more profit in terms of monetary returns, but it gave malaria an edge. If you want to talk of malaria medication that you will guaranty you result, they’re actually expensive. Take for instance, paluta. The original paluta originally was about twelve thousand naira and above. But now you can get paluta of three thousand five hundred dollars. So it depends on where these drugs are being produced and where they’re coming from. There are some that cannot enter some developed countries but which you’ll find everywhere here. And this is causing a lot of resistance from the organisms. The scenario is the same with antibiotics.

    These days, malaria seems to come with symptoms entirely different from what we used to know. Can you shed some light on this?

    The commonest symptoms for malaria are headache, bitter taste in the mouth, lack of appetite, generalised body weakness. Generalised body weakness can come in the form of sharp headache in the morning that will just come and go, and which may eventually become constant. It can also come in the form of muscle pain or what we call myalgia. And when you don’t receive treatment in time, the patient can start vomiting; he can start having abdominal cramps, abdominal discomfort, increased temperature. Now one of the major problems with malaria infection is that when the temperature rises to 39 to 40 degree centigrade especially in children, they can start having convulsion. And that is why we ask mothers to use water to sponge the children to lower their temperature.

    Statistics show that death rates from malaria, especially in the sub-Saharan Africa has persistently being on the high side, why is this so?

    First of all, people don’t present at the hospitals in time. This could be due to the economic situation in the country. A lot of people don’t even have money to eat; so when they’re sick, they go to the chemist on their street, who just mixes some drugs for them to take. By the time you see them in the hospital, the thing has got to a stage in which you really need to do a lot to get them back on track.

    According to the World Health Organisation, over 438,000 died from malaria infection globally last year, but Nigerians still largely regard it as a trivial disease. Why is this so?

    That is because malaria has lived with us for so long that it does not sound threatening to us anymore. If you mention something like HIV, you will see how people will cringe.

    A corollary to this attitude is the fact that people have adopted the habit of just going over to a chemist or pharmacist and purchasing an anti-malaria drug over the counter to swallow. What is your message for people in this category?

    We need to do a lot of public enlightenment on the danger of this habit and discourage it. We need to put jingles on TV and radio. The various local governments should organise their health workers to reach out to their neighbourhood and tell them about the devastating effects of malaria. All hands must be on deck if we really want to conquer malaria. The truth is that malaria is being taken for granted. People only decide to take malaria seriously when it has gotten to a particular level, which is very wrong.

    What steps would you recommend for someone who as much as suspects that he or she has malaria?

    See the doctor and do some investigations. The ideal thing is to carry out some investigations before beginning treatment, so that you can know the level of parasitimia in the blood.

    Recently, a young man died in a neighbourhood in Ikotun, and his neighbours were disappointed because according to them, they still saw him hale and hearty the day before. Does malaria kill so fast and suddenly?

    A lot of Nigerians have other health conditions that they may not want to mention. For instance a patient may come to the doctor in the consulting room and when you see the vital signs and tell him “Ah Oga, your BP is high o, you’re getting hypertensive,” the next thing you get is “I reject it in Jesus name.” Once you bring down the blood pressure and he gets out of that problem for which he came for consultation, such a person will never take his drugs again. And that’s why people in this part of the world die prematurely. In developed countries, the patient would rather ask, “What do I do?” So in the case of the man in question, I really don’t think it was malaria, although I don’t have the facts. He probably had some other ailment that he didn’t disclose or pay enough attention to. But be that as it may, malaria remains as lethal as ever.

    How deadly really is malaria? The fatality figures from WHO and even the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research, NIMR is scary.

    If you ask me, that figure is even an underestimation, because it does not capture those people who die of malaria in the remote African villages. So people should take it seriously. And that’s why in the treatment of malaria, you have the profelaxis and the therapeautic. Profelaxis is prevention, and we apply this to the sickle cell disease patients more, because malaria is one of the commonest things that can precipitate crisis for them. For the average individuals, you can just decide that you want to be taking anti-malaria drugs every month or every two months, depending on how often you come up with malaria. The therapeautic is when the patient actually came down with malaria and you have to treat. People often wonder how come doctors hardly fall sick, but that’s because we adopt the prophylaxis method once we see the signs.

    The theme for this year’s World Malaria Day is “Ending malaria for good,” how realistic is this for Nigeria, say in the next ten years?

    If our government is committed, it is achievable in ten years. All they need do is work towards vaccination. There are vaccines for malaria, which have not been released probably due to the selfish reasons of the powers that be. You know most of the pharmaceautical companies are surviving on malaria drugs, so by the time they release the vaccines to the public, some of these companies would shut down.  So there is some kind of international conspiracy. In those days, we had problems with cholera, yellow fever, polio, even tetanus, but when the vaccines became available, the rate of infection lowered tremendously.

  • Malaria, still a deadly menace

    Malaria, still a deadly menace

    Following the recent commemoration of this year’s World Malaria Day, Gboyega Alaka takes another look at the lackadaisical attitude of Nigerians towards the disease, drawing attention to the scary statistics and why a more serious and holistic attitude needs to be adopted.

    43-YEAR-OLD Jaiyejeje was good-looking, lovable and quietly ambitious. Although his early adulthood was tough, with unemployment dogging his way for years after school, Jaiye soon found his forte in paint design and architecture and things suddenly picked up for him. Jobs rolled in and of course good cash. In no time, he relocated to Ikorodu, where new houses were springing up and his services were more in demand, as against his Ikotun residence, where he grew up and spent most of his youth. He also bought a piece of land and simultaneously began building his own house. Life seemed good and prospects for the future even better. And then the sad news broke. Jaiye died.

    His death was undoubtedly the saddest news in his Ikotun neighbourhood, where he still maintained his old apartment. Many swore they saw him a couple of days before his sad demise. Some even said they saw him driving his Sienna bus car the day before and swore he wasn’t looking an inch sick. And yet he died. Gradually news filtered out that he had died of malaria; and then the outrage doubled. Malaria? Does malaria kill? Isn’t it just a matter of getting one of the approved malaria drugs and swallowing them to instruction? How could malaria kill somebody just like that?

    News had it that Jaiye had been rushed to the hospital in the night after suddenly falling grievously ill; and then the sad news the following day.

    Typically, Jaiye’s neighbour’s reaction and incredulity at his death and its cause largely typifies Nigerians attitude and disposition towards Malaria. For many, it is one illness no-one needs worry about. A few herbs here and there or some of the World Health Organisation’s approved drugs should suffice. Few, if any even think it is something to bother a doctor over and it is not unusual to see friends turn a friend who has visited a doctor on account of malaria into a butt of jokes.

    Many even think it is too ordinary an illness to earmark such time for, especially in the middle of their very busy schedule.

    For some however, it is as a result of poverty, as they literally calculate everything in naira and kobo. They believe going to a hospital would make them cough out more money than the mere five hundred naira or so that a pack of the drugs would have cost them. They are also quick to rationalize that the doctor would not give them anything order than the commonplace malaria drug that they know too well.

    But is malaria such a trivial infection? Is it so, so harmless, like many think?

     

    Lethal as ever

    Signals emanating from medical experts and health statistics from the World Health Organisation, WHO and other health agencies, including the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research, NIMR is however in antithesis with this position.

    An updated 2015 World Health Organisation’s Top 10 facts on malaria states that about 3.2 billion people – nearly half the world’s population – are at risk of malaria. It states further that 214 million malaria cases were detected that same year, while a whopping 438,000 resulted in death.

    In addition, it said the infection is endemic in sub-Saharan Africa, as the region recorded 89 per cent of the cases, with 91 per cent of it culminating in death.

    Elsewhere in the report, the global health body also says children under five are particularly susceptible to infection, illness and death. It expatiates that more than two thirds (70%) of all malaria deaths occur in this age bracket and that in 2015 alone, about 305,000 African children died before their fifth birthdays.

    As if determined to exterminate humanity, the report also says the disease literally lays siege on the human foetus by afflicting pregnant women, leading to spontaneous abortion, premature delivery, stillbirth, severe maternal anaemia and death of the pregnant mother. Malaria is also said to be responsible for about one third of preventable low-birth-weight babies. To this effect, WHO recommends “intermittent preventive treatment at each scheduled antenatal visit, after the first trimester.”

     

    Nigeria, highest in death rate

    Last year at the commemoration of the World Malaria Day/World Intellectual Property Day in Abuja, the United States Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. James Entwistle, declared that Nigeria has the highest number of malaria cases in the whole wide world. He said the country boasted an unenviable estimated 100 million malaria cases get annually, with about 300,000 deaths.

    The US envoy attributed the high spread of the disease and casualties in the country to widespread of fake and substandard medicines. He said the unhealthy habit is “contributing to the alarmingly high number of malaria deaths and costs of health care” in the country.

    Quoting the Nigerian Malaria Strategic Plan 2014-2020, Mr. Entwistle said “Malaria is responsible for 60 per cent of outpatient visits to health facilities, 30 per cent of childhood deaths and 25 percent of deaths in children under one year, and 11 percent of maternal deaths.”

    In plain language, the ambassador said “Stolen malaria medicines often transported or stored in sub-optimal conditions decay and become ineffective, putting patients at risk for treatment.”

    He said “parasites, a by-product of this decay causes malaria, potentially mutate and become resistant to drugs.”

    He also lamented that the criminal activities of counterfeiting drugs deny legitimate businesses return on investment and ultimately discourage growth in the nation’s pharmaceautical industry.

     

    ‘Ending malaria for Good;’ still a long way for Nigeria

    Early last week, the Nigeria Institute of Medical Research, NIMR, Lagos said not less than 51 million Nigerians tested positive to malaria parasite in 2015. The deputy director of the institute and head, Malaria Research Programme, Dr Sam Awolola made this declaration at a forum in commemoration of this year’s World Malaria Day in Lagos.

    The deputy director lamented that Nigeria, with such huge malaria burden, is still far from achieving this year’s theme of “End Malaria for Good.”

    He said Nigeria’s fact sheet according to the 2014 and 2015 World Malaria reports testify that the nation is still far from pre-elimination stage, not to talk of elimination.

     

    Deadlier than the statistics

    Dr Festus Uriri, a medical doctor at the Military Hospital, Yaba, Lagos, is however of the opinion that the figures being bandied either by the World health organization of the NIMR are largely underestimated because they do not reflect cases and deaths in the remote African villages, where there are no medical facilities, let alone data taking.

    Like the Ambassador Entwistle, he literally lays the blame for the rise in cases of malaria and deaths, and the growing resistance to drugs by the parasite at the door-steps of dealers in substandard drugs. But first, he blames it on abuse of the drugs.

    Even though he maintains that malaria is as deadly as ever, he does not think Jaiye’s death should be blamed totally on malaria. According to him, malaria hardly kills with such speed.  In his words, “A lot of Nigerians have other health conditions that they may not want to mention,” but which may be responsible for such sudden illness and death.