By Hassan Zaggi
Barring any unprecedented commitment and action in the coming months, Nigeria may not meet the 2025 Global Technical Strategy target on reduction of malaria incidences.
This is as 8 countries in Africa are already on track to meet the target, however, Nigeria is conspicuously not in the list.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) Regional Director for Africa, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, disclosed this in a message to mark the 2023 World Malaria Day.
The countries that are already on track to meet the 2025 global technical strategy target include Cabo Verde, Ethiopia, the Gambia, Ghana, Mauritania, Rwanda, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
“But 15 countries achieved insufficient reduction while 20
have witnessed stagnation or increase in cases. 10 countries saw increases in malaria deaths.
“The pace of progress must be accelerated if we want to achieve the set targets for 2025 and 2030,” she said.
While commending Member States and development partners for achievements over the last year, the WHO Regional Director, however said: “We are greatly concerned that malaria deaths remain unacceptably high, and cases have continued to increase since 2015.
“The WHO African Region alone accounted, in 2021, for an estimated 234 million malaria cases and 593 000 deaths, thus bearing the heaviest burden of over 95% of cases and 96% of deaths globally.
“Our Region, therefore, continues to be hardest hit by this deadly disease partly because too many people do not have access to preventive and curative interventions.”
Dr. Moeti regretted that: “Nearly 30% of the population in most African countries cannot access essential health services, and most people face unacceptably high expenditures on health care.
“Significant inequities affect the most vulnerable, young children and women, whereas about 80% of malaria cases and deaths occur in children under five.”
To reverse these trends and accelerate progress, she insisted, “we must rethink and revitalize our strategies by investing, innovating and implementing smartly:
“On investments, we are responsible for increasing funding for malaria interventions through primary health care approaches so that malaria services are accessed by the most vulnerable populations wherever they are,” she said.
She, therefore, called on Member States to keep malaria high on their agendas as they allocate resources to health.
Dr. Moeti, however, advocated for the decentralization of the malaria programmes to district and community levels where health systems are closest to the affected populations.
She also called for the empowerment of frontline health workers and communities to participate fully in identifying key barriers in accessing services, ensure effective implementationof malaria control strategies and hold their leaders accountable for health outcomes.
“Therefore, I call on each Member State to redouble its commitment to implement an ambitious and innovative acceleration plan to rapidly reduce the burden of malaria and save the lives of its populations.
“This can be done by ensuring that everyone, everywhere, has access to the quality and affordable malaria services they need.
“This will require a more granular understanding of who is missing out, why they are vulnerable, and what are their barriers to accessing malaria preventive and treatment services.
“To achieve this, Governments need to mobilize more resources and technical capacities at domestic and international levels and build effective partnerships and multisectoral mechanisms to help strengthen preventive measures and improve coverage of malaria case management services,” Dr. Moeti stressed.
