Nigeria, 3 other African countries account for over half of global malaria deaths in 2021

As nearly half of world’s population at risk of malaria in 2021

CSO urges political leaders to get their healthcare from government health facilities within Nigeria

The Civil Society in Malaria Control, Immunisation and Nutrition (ACOMIN) nearly half of the world’s population was at risk of malaria with an estimated 247 million cases of malaria worldwide and 619,000 deaths in 2021.

ACOMIN revealed that Nigeria and three other African countries accounted for over half of all the malaria deaths worldwide, out of which Nigeria has the highest burden with 31.3%.1

Consequently, the CSOs have advocated for the government at all levels to make health a priority by increasing their budgetary allocations for health and urged political leaders to get their healthcare from government health facilities within the country as this will enable them to develop and strengthen Nigeria’s health system.

Speaking at the advocacy-focused media engagement in Abuja, ACOMIN Senior Programme Manager, Mrs Fatma Kolo-Abdulahi noted that statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO), showed that the African region was home to 95% of malaria cases and 96% of malaria deaths while children under 5 accounted for about 80% of all malaria deaths in the region.

She stated that over the 2 years of the pandemic (2020 – 2021), COVID-related disruptions to access health services led to about 13 million more malaria cases and 63,000 more malaria deaths.

Kolo-Abdulahi implored Nigerians to fully participate in the forthcoming presidential elections and vote for candidates who have demonstrated commitment to improving Nigeria’s health sector both with their track records and manifestos and also hold political leaders accountable as regards the health systems they institute or strengthen in their respective constituencies.

She observed that ACOMIN through its partner networks has been implementing the community-led monitoring (CLM) project funded by Global Fund across thirteen states in Nigeria in order to pursue an increase in the quality of services, generate real-time objective information and assess the quality and quantity of service delivery, reduce wastage and loss of interventions and advocate for increased resource allocation for malaria intervention.

She said, “By working with various stakeholders across the spectrum of private, public, political and community office; ACOMIN has achieved noteworthy successes and contributed to mitigating several issues confronting the health sector in the communities where the project is being implemented. One of these successes on the CLM project is the Infrastructural development that has been recorded through advocacy to political leaders. For example, during quarter seven, the health facility structure was renovated and equipped with state-of-the-art equipment to serve the community in Angwan-Maichibi community, Kaduna South LGA, Kaduna State. When ACOMIN’s team first got there, they discovered that the Comprehensive health facility was dilapidated and was neither conducive nor safe for the community members which led to low patronage. The LGA Chairman, using the influence of his office, subsequently facilitated the renovation of the dilapidated facility building to a standard health facility in that community and equipped it with an incubator and wards for males, females and children respectively. This intervention has in turn increased malaria services patronage amongst many others at the facility”.

Kolo-Abdulahi Technology is being used as a vehicle to deliver interventions, as a data collection tool and to aid data analysis. ACOMIN as a Civil Society Network has deployed solutions to technologically drive its intervention across the implementing states. The Accountability Management Information Systems (ACCOMIS) was deployed with the aim of fostering electronic data collection, analysis and monitoring respectively.

According to her, the use of ACCOMIS on this CLM project has revealed that one of the most assessed services at the health facility by clients is the Malaria services and upon testing it reveals that over 35% of tested cases are positive, hence the need to intensify efforts towards strengthening health systems in eradicating malaria.

She observed that in spite of the rising challenges, there have been commendable and growing commitments at community and state levels to help strengthen health systems thereby contributing to the elimination of malaria in Nigeria adding that ACOMIN has succeeded in facilitating the exercise of political commitment to health on the Global Fund Community led Monitoring project in the last three (3) years.