Health Minister task Nigerians on environmental sanitation

Minister of Health, Prof. C. O. Onyebuchi has called on Nigerians to imbibe the culture of environmental sanitation in order to stem the tide of malaria infection in the country. The Minister gave this advice in Abuja at an occasion to commemorate the 2013 World Malaria Day celebration. Delivering his key note address, the Minister said that malaria remains a major public health problem in Nigeria adding that it has continued to be a major threat to human capital development component of the Transformation Agenda as well as other national and international development goals. He said that President Goodluck Jonathan has approved at the Federal Executive Council meeting that the Ministry should engage in other interventions aside from distributing nets adding that focusing on the environment is key to reducing the incidence of malaria. He said: “If we do simple things like keeping the environment clean, we don’t need the nets”. He said that his Ministry is embarking on indoor residual spray, it is also going to do larviciding which Federal, State and local Governments will be part of it. He explained that the World Malaria Day celebration is designed to provide stakeholders with an opportunity to raise awareness and increase the knowledge on malaria control adding that the occasion provides as an opportunity to celebrate the successes achieved in malaria control in the past one year and to advocate for support for more resources and commodities that will make the fight against malaria more effective. The theme for this year’s celebration is “Invest in the Future: Defeat Malaria”, while the slogan is ‘’Time is now”. Prof. Chukwu said that investments in malaria control have created unprecedented momentum and yielded remarkable returns in the past years stressing that in Africa, malaria deaths have been cut by one third within the last decade; continuous investments in malaria will ensure continuous decline in the incidence of malaria. In his goodwill message, the WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr. Luis Sambo who was represented by WHO country representative, Dr. Gama Vaz said that over the past decade, countries in the African Region have made commendable progress in the prevention and control of malaria. He said the World Malaria Report 2012 indicates a 33% decrease in malaria deaths in Africa adding that during the same period, an estimated 1.1 million malaria deaths were averted. He said that increased domestic and external funding is needed to ensure that adequate quantities of commodities, including enough long Lasting Insecticide Treated Nets, Insecticides, Rapid tests, microscopes, reagents and anti-malarial drugs are accessible and used rationally. He said that integrated delivery of anti-malarial actions with maternal and child health, immunization, hygiene, sanitation and improved housing programmes must be expanded in order to defeat malaria stressing that strong political commitment, strengthened regional cooperation and multidisciplinary and multisectoral collaboration are critical.