It is quite shocking to read from the Guardian Newspaper of April 25, 2023, that Nigeria spends as much as N2.04trn annually to combat malaria, however, despite this colossal resources committed, thousands of Nigerians are still dying of malaria.
Nigerians suffer the world’s greatest burden of malaria with approximately 51 million cases and 207,000 deaths reported yearly. Malaria remains a significant burden in Nigeria, particularly in pregnant women and children under the age of five years.
It could be deduced from the above highlight that Malaria is not only a public health challenge, but its direct and indirect impact on the economy also cannot be overemphasised considering the health care expenditure as well as the attendant impact like waning productivity occasioned by illness and death. It also affects foreign investment and tourism significantly.
Some researchers have also corroborated the above exposition that malaria is not only a public health challenge, that its consequence on the economy is too distinctive to be ignored. In the Nigerian communities where malaria is endemic, the impacts are loss of resources, time, and health of household members and in the worst cases death.
The researchers stressed further that 97 per cent of Nigerians live at risk of malaria and 76 per cent in high transmission areas; 50 per cent of the population is estimated to have at least an episode of malaria yearly.
An insight into the ailment of malaria revealed that it is caused by a parasite called Plasmodium. Anopheles mosquito is the vector that carries the Plasmodium parasite. The egg larva that metamorphosed into a mosquito is found in waterlogged areas, gutters, and broken bottles or cans.
Some social thinkers have posited that the 1st stage of insanity is doing the same things the same way over the years and expecting different results. If over the years colossal resources have been expended in combating malaria without commensurate results, is it not high time we re-strategised our approach of intervention from curative to preventive for a better result?
It is a fact that various mass housing initiatives to provide decent houses to Nigerians have always been a drop in the ocean or more effective in rhetoric than in practice. To this end, emphasis should focus more on the preventive approach that factors into the kind of habitation or environment in which Nigerians lived. It is evident that poverty is a major factor in malaria prevention and poor habitation is a function of poverty. The more urban an area is, the lower the cases of malaria.
Over 70 per cent of Nigerians are poorly sheltered and as such reside in either weedy, waterlogged, or areas with blocked drainages. These are veritable sources of larvae that eventually metamorphosed into mosquitos.
On the above premise, if N500bn, that is about half of the N2.04trn is expended annually on the construction of culverts and gutters in all communities nationwide, it is expected that malaria cases would be reduced considerably.
The States and local governments should complement the Federal Government by involving development control. Their involvement in assisting and ensuring that individuals built standard gutters and drainage systems around their habitation would go a long way in reducing cases of malaria in the country.
The defunct sanitary inspectorate system should be resuscitated as well in all local Governments Areas to ensure that Nigerians keep their environment clean.
With this preventive approach, there would be no place for anopheles mosquito to thrive and malaria cases would be reduced to a tolerable and inconsequential level.
