1.5 million children under-five lose their lives each year to vaccine preventable diseases, while 165 million more are left stunted by malnutrition. The international community has developed robust products and services delivery systems to confront these challenges. However, without a systematic effort to provide incentives for improved coordination of these systems, children will continue to slip through the cracks and resources will continue to be wasted on redundant programs.
These and more were issues discussed at the recently concluded programme organised by Corporate Alliance on Malaria in Africa (CAMA) in collaboration with GBCHealth and Access Bank Plc.
The forum topics emphasized areas of importance to Nigeria’s National Malaria Strategic Plan and showcased the current initiatives and opportunities for the private sector to support strengthened health systems, intervention effectiveness and the sustainability of the nation’s malaria program.
Speaking at the event, President of GBCHealth, Nancy Wildfeir-Field said “Malaria has a health and economic impact and Nigeria is one of the countries with a high disease burden so therefore, we will be assisting to help Nigeria mobilize the health sector to help proffer solution around moving to malaria elimination agenda because this will help in terms of national results which will eventually aid global impact.”
In his opening remarks, Herbert Wigwe,CEO/GMD, Access Bank Plc stated that Malaria is a major public health problem in Nigeria with frightening statistics: It accounts for more cases and deaths than any other country in the world. Malaria is a risk for 97% of Nigeria’s population. The remaining 3% of the population live in the malaria free highlands.There are an estimated 100 million malaria cases with over 300,000 deaths per year in Nigeria. This compares with 215,000 deaths per year in Nigeria from HIV/AIDS.”
“Malaria contributes to an estimated 11% of maternal mortality, it accounts for 60% of outpatient visits and 30% of hospitalizations among children under five years of age in Nigeria.”
“I strongly believe that every institution in Africa, public or private, has a role to play in making sure that we win the battle for better health care on our continent. As a Bank, we have committed ourselves to finding new ways to sustainably support the efforts of government, non-profits, medical and pharmaceutical companies as they work to prevent and treat diseases, especially those which disproportionately affect the people of Africa.” Herbert said.
“My vision, and that of Access Bank, is for a world where a child born in Africa has the same life chances as a child born anywhere else in the world. I really don’t think that is ambitious; I think that it is just what every child deserves.” Herbert continued adding that “by working together as public and private partners, we can truly improve the health of Africa. This, however, places a huge demand on us all to seek, develop, implement new or scale up existing strategies and mechanisms for the elimination of malaria in the region.”
For Sunday Okegbemiro who represented Deji Haastrup, General manager, policy, Government and Public Affairs at Chevron Nigeria, “Thanks to all who are supporting the eradication of malaria. The recent historical control of malaria probably from the efforts of those in this forum is commendable. Chevron will continue to support quality healthcare because we are also interested in combating not only malaria but HIV/AIDS among others”.
The importance of a healthy life was reinforced by Erinosho Eniola, Director of Disease Control, Lagos State Ministry of Health who represented the permanent secretary of the ministry. According to him, “Health has dire consequences on any development. It also poses a heavy burden on a country. We need to strengthen government’s involvement, and also encourage coordination and collaboration.”. He said
Nigeria is one of two countries that together account for nearly half of the global malaria burden. Over 97percent of the country’s more than 170million people are at risk of being infected with the disease.
Malaria wrecks havoc on vulnerable groups such as children under-5 and pregnant women, and it costs the country more than N480billiuon in economic losses annually. With a newly revised malaria strategic plan, the National Malaria Elimination Program has outlined an ambitious agenda to move the country from control to pre-elimination by 2020 and reducing malaria morbidity and mortality by motivating every Nigerian to take recommended actions to fund, prevent, diagnose and treat, control and eventually eliminate the disease is a key strategic priority of the NMP 2014-2020.
Kemi Ajumobi
