Abuja, 30 April 2015 - This year, Nigeria commemorated the World Malaria Day (WMD) in a week-long celebration which included a Town Hall meeting with communities on malaria best practices, rallies, advocacy to churches and mosques as well as wide range of media activities to create awareness on the malaria elimination programme; centered around the theme for the 2015 WMD ‘’Invest in the future; Defeat Malaria’’.

The activities for the WMD culminated in a ministerial press briefing held on 29 April, 2015 in Abuja during which the WHO Country Representative (WR) in Nigeria, Dr Rui Gama Vaz highlighted the need for accelerated efforts towards the achievements of the global, regional and national targets set within the National Malaria Strategic Plan (NMSP). He stressed on the need to increase commodities, infrastructural investments and provision of required resources, to control and eliminate the life-threatening disease in Nigeria.

“Global estimates show that in 2013, an estimated 163 million cases of malaria occurred in the African Region with approximately 528, 000 deaths.  Nigeria is estimated to account for about a quarter of the global cases, 30% of deaths and 29% (37million cases) of 128 million cases in Sub-Saharan Africa”, Dr Vaz stated.

The WR who was represented by Dr Andrew Mbewe at the occasion, urged the Nigerian government to be mindful of the emerging threats of drug and insecticide resistance and be ready to respond accordingly.

Similarly, The Minister of Health, Dr Khaliru Al-Hassan in his speech, acknowledged the efforts of the programme and partners for the progress recorded with scaling up of lifesaving antimalarial interventions, improved surveillance as well as the interest of the research communities in ensuring that malaria remains a critical research topic.

He stated that the world has gradually shifted focus from control to malaria elimination but lamented that “it is very disheartening to note that Nigeria still occupies a very unenviable position in the malaria landscape, accounting for about a quarter of the global burden and also missing on the list of 55 countries identified in the 2014 World Malaria Report as being on track to meet developmental goals.

To address the concerns about insecticide resistance from various quarters, the minister disclosed that “the Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) has intensified efforts towards monitoring insecticide resistance across the country.  The six vector sentinel surveillance sites that were established in 2014 in six states in the country for monitoring insecticide resistance are now fully operational”.

In closing, the Minister who was represented by the Permanent Secretary of FMOH, Mr Linus Awute, launched the NMSP 2014 – 2020 which targets the  reduction of  malaria prevalence to less than 5% and malaria related deaths to zero by 2020.

The WMD is set aside by the World Health Assembly to be commemorated on the 25th April of every year with the  aim of creating awareness and mobilizing support for the malaria elimination programme.

_____________________________

For more information, please contact:

Technical contacts:

Dr Dr Lynda Ozor; Tel: +234 803 402 0832; Email: ozorl [at] who.int
Media contact:

Ms Charity Warigon; Tel: +234 810 221 0093; Email: warigonc [at] who.int
Below:

01. Roadshow for creating awareness on WMD

02. The Permanent Secretary launching the NMSP 2014 – 2020