No fewer than 30 children die every hour in Nigeria as a result of
malaria attack.
Cordinator
of the ational Malaria Elimination Programme (NMEP) in the Federal Ministry of
Health, Audu Muhammed who made the shocking disclosure in Abuja
added that malaria also render a substantial number of children incapable of
effective learning.
He said the scourge remained a major contributor to the
country’s high infant mortality rate.
According
to UNICEF, every single day, Nigeria loses about 2,300 under-five year olds and
145 women of childbearing age, thereby making the country the second largest
contributor to the under-five and maternal mortality rate in the world.
Audu
who spoke at a media parley where he was represented by the Director, Monetary
and Evaluation, NMEP, Dr. Perpetual Uhomoibhi, disclosed that the Federal
Government has scaled up the distribution of long lasting insecticides nets
(LLINs) across the country in an attempt to stop children from being infected
with the disease.
He,
however, said Nigeria has recorded a reduction in the prevalence rate of
malaria
“It
is indeed sad to know that malaria is still a leading cause of death for
under-five children in Nigeria, snuffing out lives of about 30 children every
one hour and rendering a substantial number of them incapable of effective
learning. However, we have good results on reduction of prevalence,” he said.
On
how the reduction was achieved, he explained that Federal Government has
distributed 8.4 million LLINs in Kogi, Edo and Osun States, with a total of 105
million distributed across the country.
“The
prevalence of malaria has reduced from 42 percent to 27 percent (MIS,
2015). The National Insecticide Resistance Management (NIRM) plan has been
finalised, it is meant to guide the country’s decision on malaria management in
the future,” he said.
Also
speaking, representative of Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), Omawumi
Omoniwa, advised that people get tested for the disease before treatment.
It
was also revealed that preventable or treatable infectious diseases such as
malaria, pneumonia, diarrhoea, measles and HIV/AIDS account for more than 70
per cent of the estimated one million under-five deaths in Nigeria.
- Sun News
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