Nigeria loses $1.1b yearly to malaria, says FG 

FEDERAL Government has said that Nigeria loses over $1.1 billion to malaria every year.

  Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof Muhammad Pate, stated this at the inaugural meeting of the Advisory on Malaria Elimination in Nigeria in Abuja. 

  He described malaria as not just a health crisis, but an economic and developmental emergency that must be eliminated. 

  Pate observed that malaria had continued to exert an unacceptable toll on Nigeria, adding that with 27 per cent of global malaria cases and 31 per cent of global malaria deaths, Nigeria had the heaviest burden of the disease.

  He lamented that in 2022, over 180,000 Nigerian children, under the age of five, lost their lives to malaria, saying, however, that it was a tragedy Nigeria had the tools to prevent.

  “This is not just a health crisis, but an economic and developmental emergency that must be eliminated. Malaria reduces productivity, increases out-of-pocket health expenditures and, compounds the challenges of poverty,” he stressed. 

  The minister observed that malaria elimination was a critical component of the Nigeria Health Sector Renewal Investment Initiative (NHSRII) framework for transforming the health sector, in alignment with the present administration’s Renewed Hope Agenda. 

  In a statement, the ministry’s Deputy Director of Information and Public Relations, Alaba Balogun, quoted Pate as saying that the unveiling of the advisory body was a bold and decisive step to confronting and addressing the disease.

  According to the Minister of State for Health & Social Welfare, Dr Iziaq Adekunle Salako, in his remarks at the event, the Advisory body is a group of experts, who will provide evidence-based advisory to help the country not only to reduce its unacceptable malaria burden but set the nation on a realistic path to a malaria-free Nigeria.

  “For us to succeed, the private sector, international partners, healthcare workers and, the communities we serve must be harnessed and coordinated”, Salako added.

  In her welcome address, the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Daju Kachollom, represented by the Director Public Health Department, Dr Chukwuma Anyaike, stated that the renewed commitment by the present administration had brought a new life to the effort to eliminate the disease.