Federal, states ‘must step up efforts against malaria’

The federal and state governments have to do more as regards the intervention and treatment of malaria, as the fight to eliminate malaria is mostly donor driven.

The National Malaria Elimination Programme (NMEP) and the Society for Family Health (SFH), implementation partners of the global fund for malaria programme in Nigeria, lament this situation saying governments at all level can do more in this regard.

The global fund intervention runs in 24 states of Nigeria.

While malaria deaths have reduced across the world, malaria is still endemic in sub-Saharan Africa, with Nigeria and Congo having the highest burden of malaria in the world.

The infection currently kills 80 children every 60 minutes and renders more children incapable of learning effectively in Nigeria.

Ernest Nwokolo, malaria programme director at the Society for Family Health, shedding light on athe programme called Private Sector Procurement Mechanism, spoke about affordability of malaria drugs and the deception perpetuated by pharmacies in terms of cost of the drugs.

He said malaria drugs are heavily subsidised but pharmacies hoard them.

“This is the biggest deception we are seeing in our country. The Private Sector Procurement Mechanism means that the global fund pays money to the manufacturer. If the drug is supposed to cost one dollar, they pay 95 cents,” he said.

“The manufacturer sells the drug to people we call first-line users, who buy at five cents. When they come into the county we discuss with them so that they sell the drugs at nothing more than N100 and adult dose at 120. The drugs have a sign- a green leaf logo”.

Nwokolo said malaria drugs with the green logo are produced by the same company that produce expensive drugs.

“Because you don’t know about that, when you go to these pharmacies, they will sell the costly ones because they make gain.

“People prefer the expensive ones because when the pharmacist brings the cheaper one for N200, and the expensive one, the person will ask for the expensive one because ‘he wants to know what he’s buying.’”

He accused pharmacies of “maximizing” the ignorance of the people.

Also speaking at the event was Godwin Ntadom of the NMEP. He said “Sub-Saharan Africa demonstrated the least commitment due to Ignorance (causes and how to prevent malaria); inadequate resources; weak political commitment and poor communication” .

The partners say they plan to increase “communication to change attitudes and behaviours as well as to encourage increased environmental measures to eliminate the breeding grounds for mosquitoes.”