The Society for Family Health, SFH, said nine Nigerians die every hour in Nigeria as a result of malaria.

This was also as it said 97 per cent of Nigerians suffer from the burden of malaria.

The Society’s Social and Behavioural Change Specialist, Sesugh Deborah Oryiman, disclosed this during a media orientation on integrated insecticide treated nets (ITNs) and Seasonal Malaria Chemo prevention (SMC) campaign in Kano.

Oryiman said during the campaign, it planned to distribute 7.7million treated nets and over 15m doses of SPAQ to children between age of 3-59 months in order to reduce the burden of malaria.

According to her, “Malaria is the most common preventable public health problem in Nigeria, yet it takes a lethal toll on 97% of Nigerians, especially children under five years of age and pregnant women.

“Evidence has shown that Nigeria accounts for nearly 110million clinically diagnosed cases per year.

“An estimated 30% of child and 11% of maternal deaths each year are due to malaria.

“Nigeria accounts for a quarter of the malaria burden in the world.

“Two out of every 4 persons having malaria in West African sub-region live in Nigeria. One out of 5 deaths from malaria globally occur in Nigeria. Malaria kills 9 people every hour in Nigeria.

“It is the commonest cause of absenteeism from schools, offices, farms, markets, etc., resulting to lower productivity.

“In addition to the overburden on health system it also exerts a huge social and economic burden on our communities and country, retarding the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 40% annually and billions of Naira is lost to malaria annually in form of treatment cost, prevention and loss of man hours. Despite the increase in malaria incidence, there was a notable decrease in malaria prevalence as determined by microscopy, dropping from 27% in 2015 to 22% in 2021.

“Malaria can be prevented by not allowing mosquito to bite us. One assured way (and most cost effective) is to sleep inside a net consistently,” she said.

The Society’s Social and Behavioral Change Specialist, Oryiman maintained the distribution of treated nets were to focus on Local Government areas and wards most vulnerable and with prevalent cases of malaria while the SPAQ dosage will be carried out across the 44 LGAs of the state.

On his part, the Kano State Malaria Elimination Programme Manager, SMEPM, Babangida Gwarzo said it has engaged over 27,000 Community Mobilizers and Distributors, CMDs to go house to house to give the SPAQ dosage to the children and targets to reach over 3 million children as well as give the caregiver token for collection of the treated nets.

He however, appealed to caregivers to avail their wards for the dosage to reduce the burden of malaria in the state, especially during the rainy season. (Vanguard)