Malaria Day: House Of Reps Calls For Use Of Local Drugs

The House of Representatives says lack of adequate Domestic Financing, inadequate use of local content in terms of production as well as the patronage of locally made Long Lasting Insecticide Nets, LLINs and antimalarial drugs are key challenges to ending malaria in Nigeria.

The House Spokesperson, Benjamin Kalu, in a statement to commemorate this year’s ‘World Malaria Day’, stated that four African countries, including Nigeria, accounted for over half of all malaria deaths worldwide.

Kalu said that “Nigeria alone accounted for (31.3%) of global malaria deaths, followed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo (12.6%), the United Republic of Tanzania (4.1%), and Niger (3.9%).”

He stated that malaria remained a significant public health challenge with an estimated 97 million cases and 300,000 deaths annually.

Noting that although progress has been made in reducing the burden of this disease, he said much work still needed to be done to eliminate it.

The lawmaker said that the key areas of challenge to addressing the Malaria burden in Nigeria have been issues of donor dependence for malaria intervention in the country.

He however decried the lukewarm attitude of the National Malaria Elimination Programme, NMEP, leadership and slow actions from UNOPs the procurement agency for Islamic Bank funding and the World Bank has affected the urgent procurement of these commodities despite the availability of the funds and commodities locally produce in Nigeria.

He also called on the NMEP, UNOPs and the World Bank to fast-track the procurement of lifesaving commodities to mitigate the high burden of malaria in Nigeria as reiterated in the 2023 World Malaria Theme.