By Mashe Umaru Gwamna
The federal government said it focusing on sustainable programmme that will eliminate and reduce breeding avenues for mosquito disease vector which involves fostering collaboration with stakeholders.
The Minister of Environment Mohammed Abdullahi made the disclosure during a press briefing to commemorate world mosquitoes day recently in Abuja.
He said collaboration with stakeholders include sub-nationals, development partners, relevant ministries, departments ,agencies, civil society and community leaders among others .
The minister said said the strategies to be deployed would include integrated pest and vector management, as outlined in national environment sanitation policy,2005 .
“Our roles on integrated vector management as identified in the National Malaria Strategic plan 2014 to 2020 will be played expeditiously and as diligently as possible in order to deliver our mandate”.
Mohammed urged individuals, families and community members to imbibe preventative measures such as
“keeping waste materials and junks away from village squares, huts and rooms”.
To guard against insects, he urged them to use wire mesh to reduce mosquito entry into living and bedroom and ensure regular cleaning and removal of waste materials.
“They should endeavor to seek assistance of trained environmental health practitioners on the best way of handling mosquitos and other animals disease vectors generally”.
He said Nigeria has the world’s highest malaria burden with a reported cases of 51million and 207,000 deaths representing nearly 30% of the total malaria burden in Africa.
“ It is also estimated that nearly 173million Nigerians are being infected.
He noted that, ”the alarming situation brings along with economic consequences, absence from work by adults and school on the part of children.
He said several efforts are being made internationally, nationally and locally to combat the malaria scourge.
He added that only recently, President Muhammadu Buhari inaugurated the Nigeria End Malaria Council (NEMC) where he mandated it to ensure successful implementation of the Council’s programme that should translate into N2 trillion savings from the estimated economic burden of the disease by 2030.
Abdullahi, added that the Ministry is solidly behind the President in achieving the onerous target set for the NEMC which is quite achievable with the right implementation of strategies utilizing collaboration and partnership.
He said that the decision for Nigeria to establish the NEMC is indeed laudable on account of the importance the African Union attaches to it.
The Minister, said: “The inauguration of the NEMC coming barely five days to the World Mosquito Day is testament to the fact that the killer Arthropod is the Centre of attraction as Case management of Malaria has proven too be less effective in the control of the hyper endemic disease.
Meanwhile, he said control of the adult mosquito bite through the use of Insecticide-Treated (Mosquito) Nets is posting some gains, attaining the desired impact is not near and is unfortunately not too reliable strategy.
Meanwhile,The Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire said that the Ministry would continue to strive towards a malaria-free Nigeria, using a multi-pronged and multi-sectoral approach to drive down the prevalence of the malaria and other vector borne diseases.
Ehanire represented by National Coordinator, National Malaria Elimination programmme of the ministry, Dr Perpetual Uhomoibhi said although Nigeria contributes to a quarter of global cases and deaths of malaria.
“I am happy to note that with efforts put in place so far, we have been able to improve on our indicators, with the country achieving a reduction in malaria prevalence from 42% in 2010 to 23% in 2018 “.
He said the National malaria programme has also carried out a stratification exercise which defined the intervention mixes that can be applied to specific locations across the country using granular data collated at the LGA and State levels in some cases.
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