Underestimating the malaria scourge

By Adekunle Adekoya

TUESDAY April 25, 2023 was World Malaria Day, WMD. WMD is an international observance commemorated every year on April 25 and recognises global efforts to control malaria. Globally, 3.3 billion people in 106 countries are at risk of malaria. In 2012, malaria caused an estimated 627,000 deaths, mostly among African children. According to the 2021 World Malaria Report from the World Health Organisation, WHO, our country, Nigeria, contributes 27 per cent to the global malaria burden (one out of every four persons having malaria) and 32 per cent to malaria deaths globally (about one out of every three deaths). 

It is a coincidence that I am just recuperating from a bout of malaria, which rendered me prostrate for the better part of one week. As a fellow Nigerian, you must know what I went through in terms of the effects on my body. It is not possible to recall just how many times I have had attacks of malaria; indeed, I wager that most Nigerians who have ever had it cannot remember just how many times they’d been lain prostrate by malaria. Sadly, it is one disease we live with, from generation to generation. 

Earlier in the week, Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, said the economic burden of malaria in Nigeria may increase to about $2.8bn by 2030.  He spoke in Abuja Tuesday during the commemoration of this year’s World Malaria Day, during which he also said the economic burden of malaria in Nigeria for 2022 alone was estimated at $1.6bn.

The economic impact of malaria is huge. During the 2021 World Malaria Day Commemoration, the World Health Organisation, WHO, said malaria is responsible for an annual reduction of 1.3 per cent in Africa’s economic growth.

WHO Regional Director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, disclosed this, adding that for every year that malaria spread, health and development suffer the most.

She noted that malaria-related absenteeism and productivity losses cost Nigeria an estimated US$ 1.1 billion every year.

“Malaria is responsible for an average annual reduction of 1.3 per cent in Africa’s economic growth,” Ms Moeti said.

“Malaria-related absenteeism and productivity losses cost Nigeria, for example, an estimated US$ 1.1 billion every year. In other African countries, Moeti said:

“In 2003, malaria cost Uganda an estimated gross domestic product equivalent to US$ 11 million and in Kenya, approximately 170 million working days and 11 per cent of primary school days are lost to malaria each year.”

It is nauseating for me when our public officials speak on issues like malaria with no visible effort on ground to ensure that it abates. Moeti said: “Cabo Verde has maintained zero malaria status since 2018, Algeria was certified malaria free in 2019, and Botswana, Ethiopia, the Gambia, Ghana, Namibia and South Africa achieved the 2020 milestones of reducing malaria incidence and deaths by 40 per cent compared to 2015.”

What is being done to reduce the impact of the malaria scourge on our people and by extension, our economy? As I have said many times here, those who manage our affairs are interested only in what they can get out of public office, very little in terms of what they can give by way of service. But our people are also funny. Remember the late Dr. Tunji Braithwaite of the Nigeria Advance Party fame? He promised to eradicate rats and cockroaches if he got political power. Nigerians laughed him to scorn, saying he’s unserious; of all the problems in Nigeria, it’s rats and cokroaches he chose to face. The issue for me and those others who saw some sense in Braithwaite’s avowals was the linkage between economic productivity and general well-being and an environment that was so good rats and cockroaches can’t be found. How would Nigerians have reacted if Peter Obi, Bola Tinubu, or Atiku Abubakar had campaigned, vowing to eradicate malaria? Would we have seen the linkage? It is such a shame that the politicians also fail to see the linkage between the parlous condition of our environment and the Ja pa syndrome.

In almost all our towns and cities nationwide, drainage channels are blocked, not flowing, thereby providing millions of pools of stagnant water in which mosquitoes breed. In addition, we have been unable to control the use and disposal of polypropylene products like pure water nylon bags, poly bags, pet bottles, styrofoam containers and other poly receptacles which litter our environment. All these collect stagnant water, which the mosquito, vector of the malaria germ, finds very useful to breed in. The issue for me is: Can we reduce malaria by eradicating the mosquito? I think we can, it’s just that no government has yet thought of it as an emergency that requires concerted effort. Many of us have been on flights out of the country; as soon as boarding is complete and the flight is preparing to take-off, cabin crew spray the plane’s cabin, passengers and all. Reason: Any mosquito hiding in anybody’s garment or luggage should be dead before arriving at the destination.

The N2 trillion cost of malaria envisaged by Ehanire by 2030 will be coughed out mostly by hapless Nigerians, and will go to swell the pockets of big pharma from other countries and their Nigerian resellers. If Algeria has been malaria-free since 2013, what stops Nigeria? What did Cabo Verde do to be malaria-free since 2018 that Nigeria cannot do? Time is now for the political leadership to focus properly on the things that are making life “nasty, brustish and short” in Nigeria. Malaria is one of them.