To improve Nigeria’s fight against malaria regarding morbidity and mortality, Nigeria’s Ministry of Health and Social Welfare hosted key health players and experts to reevaluate its approach and strategies.
The event themed: “Ministerial Roundtable Meeting: Rethinking Malaria Elimination in Nigeria,” featured representatives from national and international health organizations, who analyzed the country’s anti-malaria strategies over the past years.
Over the years, Nigeria has made continuous attempts to reduce its malaria burden to zero, however, the country still has the highest burden of malaria globally.
According to the 2022 World Malaria Report, Nigeria contributes about 27% of the global burden of the disease, and about 31.3% of deaths, the largest globally.
Recommending new ways to fight the epidemic, stakeholders and experts present at the event urged the government to reduce its dependence on external funding and improve government financing.
According to them, Nigeria needs to accelerate its effort to eliminate malaria by increasing the funds allocated to the malaria elimination programme annually.
A Senior Associate at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Soji Adeyi, said Nigeria should begin to increase internal funding for malaria elimination.
“Each year, reliance on external funding needs to be reduced. I looked at the summary of malaria reports from 2008 till now and what has been common is the complaint about the lack of funding. If this is a recurring problem what should be done is to find a new approach,” he said.
