The Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, PSN,has given recipe on how Nigeria can defeat malaria scourge by 2025.
Pharm. Sam Ohuabunwa, the President of the PSN, who gave the recipe in commemoration of this year’s World Malaria Day
He said Nigeria can achieve if it introduces free malaria test and treatment for under 5s and pregnant women, environmental re-engineering, health education as well as invest in research and development. Making the assertion in a message to mark the day in Nigeria, President of the PSN, Pharm. Sam Ohuabunwa
He maintained that malaria is a disease of Public Health importance and influenced by the environment, adding that the government needs to be intentional with town planning and discourage unauthorised constructions that disrupt waterways.
According to him,drainages must be covered to discourage forming mosquitoes breathing sites, stressing that Nigeria must begin to introduce free malaria test and treatment for under-fives and pregnant women as early and an accurate diagnosis was essential for rapid and effective disease management and surveillance.
He said: “Misdiagnosis allows disease progression from uncomplicated to severe.
An estimated 65 per cent of Nigeria’s population live in poverty. Though there is the National policy of Artemisinin-based Combined Therapy ( ACT ), which costs about N1,200 as the first-line treatment of uncomplicated malaria, current data indicates that over 70 per cent of children treated for malaria in Nigeria received chloroquine or sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine ( SP ) with an average cost of N200. Ohuabunwa said government and corporate organisations should partner and provide free malaria rapid test kit and ACTs/SPs at community pharmacies for treatment for pregnant women and under 5s.
He advised the National Orientation Agency, NOA, to engage Nigerians to continue to discourage habits that create breathing sites for mosquitoes. “For instance, throwing empty food cans indiscriminately, overgrown bushes and blocked drainages around living homes. Prevention programs like the distribution and use of Long Lasting Insecticidal Nets, intermittent prophylaxis for pregnant women, evidence-based health education on the mode of malaria transmission, indoor Residual Spraying with an effective insecticide should be facilitated by the government through the pharmacists.”
