Civil society group  lists  insecurity as major challenge in fight against malaria

Nigeria still has a long way to go in achieving the control of the deadly malaria disease due to challenges confronting its intervention which include increased difficulty in accessing hard-to-reach communities due to insecurity affecting parts of the country.

The challenges also include drug resistance by the malaria parasite.

The World Malaria Report of 2020  puts  Nigeria with the highest number of cases which accounted for the highest number of deaths in the country.

According to Civil Society In Malaria Control, Immunization and Nutrition, a non-governmental organisation, several communities under threat of insecurity could not be reached by health workers and other civil society groups to carry out sensitisation on the need for people to come out for free malaria commodities.

It said efforts have been made to eliminate the disease through among others, the provision of free long-lasting insecticide-treated nets(LLINs), free test kits and medicine and deployment of volunteers to carry out interpersonal communication at the grassroots.

At a media briefing in Asaba, Delta State, the programme officer of the society, Austin  Uwede said as part of efforts to address the challenges of malaria in the country, the group has been re-engaged by Catholic Relief Services (CRS) under the ongoing Global  Fund(GF) malaria grant to continue implementing civil society components to 13 states in the country.

They are Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Jigawa, Kwara, Niger, Taraba , Gombe, Yobe, Adamawa,Ogun, Osun and Delta.

He disclosed that the program covered eight of the 25 council areas of Delta in the  last two years to ascertain whether malaria commodities sent to the areas were properly distributed.

As a way forward to fight the malaria scourge, the group appealed to the media to advocate for ministries and agencies to scale up community-centred initiatives in their program, stakeholders to contribute to the elimination of malaria in their communities, and sensitising youths as veritable tools in the cleaning of the environment.

The Strategic behaviour change communication specialist, Mrs Mercy Momoh of Society For Family Health (SFH), said the nation was striving to achieve zero malaria statistics adding that a lot of information was needed for residents in communities to access freely, the malaria commodities stocked in health centres.