Nigeria’s damning malaria death statistics

THE statistics recently released by the World Health Organization (WHO) in respect of global malaria infections and associated mortalities  in 2020 are frightening. The figures belied the local and international efforts and collaborations to fight the scourge. It is even more concerning that of the 627,000 deaths attributed to malaria infections worldwide in 2020, four African countries were reported to have contributed half of the  number, with children under the age of five accounting for 80 per cent of estimated deaths in the region. And Nigeria alone accounted for a whopping 31.9 per cent of the total deaths associated with malaria infections worldwide in 2020. This disproportionately high percentage made the country the jurisdiction that recorded the highest number of lives lost to malaria infections not only  in Africa but also in the world in 2020. This is one saddening addition to the litany of embarrassing statistics the country parades, including being the poverty capital of the world. In other words, the country tends to always get mentioned and often in the forefront when statistics are negative.

It is rather piteous, but also clearly indicting of the leadership  that in  2020, a tumultuous year that witnessed loss of lives to the COVID-19 pandemic, and when various violent non-state actors also  latched onto  the lax security architecture in the country to cause destruction of lives and properties, the country also  lost over two 200,000 of its citizens silently to a preventable disease. The various disclosures by the WHO in its 2020 malaria report are,  to say the least, damning, and they call to serious question the official competence and commitment to actualising a malaria-free Nigeria. And what this means is that the so-called anti-malaria efforts are a ruse. Otherwise, with the heavily hyped and  seemingly comprehensive and consistent antimalarial initiatives, the country should not be returning all these patently unenviable and depressing statistics.

The WHO’s heart-rending statistics on the burden of malaria in Nigeria  necessarily call for interrogation of the sordid state of affairs and a few questions are really begging for answers. The US business mogul and philanthropist, Bill Gates, has subsidised malaria drugs and Nigeria gets grants, so what is the problem? Why is the disease not responding to the control mechanism instituted? Why did the mortality rate from malaria infections escalate at a time when resources were supposedly pooled from various sources to combat the disease frontally in the country? So many questions could be asked but they point to one, and only one, answer: deficient leadership. The same absence of responsible leadership that occasioned deficient security architecture which has continued to expose the citizenry to attacks from terrorists of diverse hues in different parts of the country, is the reason hundreds of thousands of Nigerians are dying of malaria infections. And it would not be surprising to find that the lacklustre official performance in malaria management and control is replicated in the control and management of other diseases, and indeed in public affairs management as a whole.

It is important to stress that the health sector can ill-afford the kind of monumental inefficiency and sleaze that often characterise the governance of the public sector of the economy. When such sensitivities are disregarded, the consequences are usually grave and irreversible, like the instant case of the loss of over 200,000 souls to malaria in one calendar year. If anyone was unsure that the country’s healthcare delivery system is challenged, the WHO 2020 malaria report has erased such doubt. The system needs urgent resetting and prioritisation. In a situation where budgetary allocation and cash releases, welfare of medical personnel, the use of available resources and official management of industrial harmony in the health sector do not adequately reflect the needs of the healthcare delivery system, the kind of malaria  report which the WHO has issued on the country is inevitable. Perhaps if medical tourism is banned for all categories of public officials in the country, the imperative of  adequately resourcing local  health facilities and ensuring that medical personnel are sufficiently motivated to deliver high quality services would  be accorded adequate attention.

There is the argument, and it is not  totally bereft of merit, that the sudden focus on COVID-19 during the  period covered by the WHO report might have contributed to the upsurge in the deaths arising from malaria infection in the country. However, this singular factor cannot explain away the disproportionately huge loss of lives to malaria infections. Yes, the treatment, control and management of COVID-19 drew some human and material resources away from the management of other diseases, but to have this huge spike in malaria-induced deaths because of such redirection of medical resources also bordered on official ineptitude and incompetence. Why should the country’s health managers design  protocols, processes and procedures for combating a new disease in a manner that suggests that the extant diseases have suddenly disappeared or that they are no longer of any relevance? Is that how affairs are handled in the advanced climes where higher authorities and the citizens reserve the right to ask probing questions that must be answered on official decisions, actions and their outcomes?

There can be no justification for the huge loss of precious lives to malaria infections in this day and age. We, therefore, urge the government, and especially the country’s health managers, to up their ante to ensure that the year 2020 malaria report by the WHO is the last that has indicted their professional competence and put the country on the wrong side of history.

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