Posted on: Thu 02-06-2022

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that malaria cases will continue to increase in Nigeria because government is poorly funding the fight against the scourge.

Speaking yesterday in Yola, Adamawa State, during a Media Engagement on Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention (SMC) campaign, organised by WHO, the National Consultant on Malaria Emergencies in Nigeria, Dr. IniAbasi Nglass, said that 90 per cent of the schemes to fight the epidemic in the country was sponsored by donor agencies.

He said: “The Nigeria government is not properly funding the fight against malaria. Why malaria cases are low in other countries is that their budgets are sufficient to fight the scourge called malaria. Donor agencies have their limits; they cannot do everything for a country. Other countries too need their assistance,” she said.

The consultant noted SMC as a four months intervention scheme for children less than three years of age.

He maintained that the objective of the media engagement on SMC campaign was to make media practitioners to understand SMC and its benefits, as well as to be able to report the campaign correctly in Adamawa.

One of the campaigners, Mrs. Lydia Adamu, blamed the difficulties in treatment of malaria on self-medication.

“It is not all fever that is a symptom of malaria. If you treat malaria in the case of another ailment, when you eventually have malaria, the treatment will be difficult, because your body system had developed resistance to malaria drugs,” she said.

Adamu cautioned against personal diagnosis of malaria and urged people to always go to laboratory for test before treatment to avoid compounding their health problems.

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