World Malaria Day – Ready to Beat Malaria
25th April every year is a day set aside by World Health Organization to underscore the collective energy and commitment of the global malaria community in uniting around the common goal of a world free of malaria. It highlights the remarkable
progress achieved in tackling one of humanity’s oldest diseases, while also calling out worrying trends as captured in the World malaria reports. Malaria is a life-threatening disease caused by parasites that are transmitted to people through the bites of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes. It is preventable and curable.
The global response to malaria is at a crossroads. After an unprecedented period of success in malaria control, progress has stalled. The current pace is insufficient to achieve the 2020 milestones of the WHO Global Technical Strategy for Malaria 2016–2030 – specifically, targets calling for a 40% reduction in malaria case incidence and death rates. Countries with ongoing transmission are increasingly falling into one of two categories; those moving towards elimination and those with a high burden of the disease that have reported significant increases in malaria cases. Without urgent action, the major gains in the fight against malaria are under threat. On this World Malaria Day, WHO continues to call for greater investment and expanded coverage of proven tools that prevent, diagnose and treat malaria.
In Nigeria, there have been interventions in prevention, diagnosis and treatment of malaria though the indigent and uninformed still have challenges in accessing these services. However, one of the factors that have been overriding the success in malaria control is centered on the environment. In most parts of our rural and urban centres, there are no central sewage systems as a result of which septic tanks are dug within each compound; other liquid wastes are disposed through surface drainage channels. As a result of these, the pools of stagnant water around our homes breed mosquitoes each second. So, bridging these infrastructural gaps effectively and maintenance of good environmental hygiene can prevent malaria much more than insecticides and nets. Post sources: hittp://www.who.int/campaigns/malaria-day/2018/evwnt/en/
hittp://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/dertail/malaria