‘Malaria kills 9 persons every hour in Nigeria’ – SFH specialist

Malaria kills at least nine Nigerians every hour, the Media and Communications Specialist of the Global Fund project of the Society for Family Health (SFH), Daniel Gbue, has dislcosed.

Gbue, who quoted statistics, also said one out of five deaths from malaria globally occurs in Nigeria.

He disclosed this in Abeokuta at a one-day media orientation for practising journalists across the state on the Insecticide-Treated Nets (ITNs), universal coverage campaign.

On his part John Ocholi, the Project Director, Global Fund Project, SFH, explained that this has prompted the 2024 campaign for Insecticide-Treated Nets (ITNs), targeting residents of rural areas where malaria risk is at the highest.

Ocholi stated that the goal of the campaign is to ensure healthy living of people rather than spending their resources on treating the disease.

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He lamented that the state has the lowest proportion of net utilization globally and emphasized the necessity for residents to use the net.

Ocholi said, “First, we need to work of preventing the mosquitoes bitting us which is what the government of Ogun state is doing by partnering with the free distribution of net in the state. The attention now is when you give people net and they sleep inside every night they reduce the bite and the contact with the vector.

“Ogun State have one of the least percentage of net use utilization in the world. Its somewhere around 30% and net ownership is about 60-70%, so we want to also encourage people to use the net. We are begging people once you get this net air it for 24hrs after that, put it over the sleeping space and sleep inside it every night.”

Responding the Malaria Program Manager for Ogun State, Mrs Olamide Adeyinka, noted that the state has embarked on an interpersonal sensitization to alley citizens fear on the usage of mosquito net.

She said, “We are having a lot of community mobilization we have CSOs (Civil society Organisations) who are working in the community to make people see reasons why they need to use the net correctly.

“In 10 local governments we are doing what we call inter personal communication, where people move from house to house talking to them one on one so as to ascertain the reasons for not using it and advice them on the advantage of using it.”

Adeyinka emphasized the state’s readiness, stating that about 14,000 personnel will engage in the campaign.

“The state is fully ready for distribution of over 3 million nets to all the LGAs within the state.

“”Over 14,000 personnel would be involved across the state, a lot of advocacy visits have been paid to stakeholders, traditional, religious, community and opinions makers.”