One out of five deaths from malaria globally occurs in Nigeria, the Media and communications specialist of the Global Fund project of the Society for Family Health (SFH), Daniel Gbue, has disclosed.
Quoting different world statistics on malaria prevalence in Nigeria, Gbue also said the disease kills nine persons every hour in Nigeria.
He spoke in Abeokuta, Ogun State, at a one-day media orientation for practising journalists across the state on the ITN universal coverage campaign.
Gbue said: “It (malaria) is the commonest cause of absenteeism from schools, offices, farms, markets, etc resulting to lower productivity.
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“In addition to the overburden on health system it also exerts a huge social and economic burden on our communities and country, retarding the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 40% annually and billions of Naira is lost to malaria annually in form of treatment cost, prevention and loss of man hours.”
He called on media practitioners to propagate anti-malaria campaign by promoting use of treated nets in order to help reduce the disease across the country.
The Project Director of the SFH, John Ocholi, said the body will be distributing 3.1million long lasting insecticide treated nets to residents of Ogun State, as part of the efforts to combat malaria in Nigeria.
He said the programme is being carried out in collaboration with the state government, the National Malaria Elimination Programme (NMEP), the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and other partners.
Ocholi explained that the distribution is aimed at reducing malaria prevalence in the country by encouraging regular use of treated nets in all households.
The Project Director insisted that a “malaria free Nigeria” is attainable, saying the country is on track.
He, however, expressed concern over low utilisation of treated nets by the households especially in Ogun State.
“Ogun State has one of the least percentage of net utilization in the world , it’s somewhere around 30% and net ownership is about 60-70%.
“So, we also want to encourage people to use the net. We are begging people once you get this net, air it for 24hrs after that, put it over the sleeping space and sleep inside it every night.
“If we save money from buying drugs we can use it in other things like education, transportation, feeding and others. And that’s why we say health is wealth, it helps you to do other things,” Ocholi said.
Ocholi disclosed that the team will be working with 14,000 personnel to distribute the nets from 1,400 distribution points across the state between October 31 and November 6.
The Malaria Program Manager for Ogun State, Mrs Olamide Adeyinka, disclosed has embarked on an interpersonal sensitization to improve on net utilisation.
“We are having alot of community mobilization. We have CSOs ( Civil society Organisations ) who are working in the community to make people see reasons why they need to use the net correctly.
“In 10 local governments, we are doing what we call inter personal communication, where people move from house to house talking to them one on one so as to ascertain the reasons for not using it and advise them on the advantage of using it,” she said.
