As Nigeria joins the rest of the world clamoring to end malaria, the head of the country’s program draws attention to the private sector…
Dr. Audu Mohammed, National Coordinator of Nigeria’s National Malaria Elimination Programme, strongly believes that the private sector has critical roles to play in the quest to eliminate malaria in Nigeria, he said this during an exclusive interview with healthnews.africa
According to him, the country may never get rid of malaria if private-sector agents like patent medicine vendors are not well integrated into delivery of malaria services. He said this hinges on the fact that more Nigerians go to private practitioners for the management of malaria.
“It is quite obvious a lot of people go to private sector to seek health care. If we don’t empower the private sector, we will not achieve malaria-free Nigeria,” Mohammed told healthnews.africa.
More specifically, he said as high as 60% of Nigerians patronize the private sector for the treatment of malaria.
“If we don’t include them in implementation, we are missing a lot of people,” he said.
He told healthnews.africa that there are opportunities to involve the private sector particularly in the area of data collection in addition to planning and implementation.
“When they are not included in area of data collection, it becomes a problem. We have to involve them in planning and implementation and collect their data for planning” he told healthnews.africa
In MArch 2018, Mohammed issued an appeal to Nigerians to stop treating malaria with monotherapy (single medicine). Instead, he enjoined Nigerians to embrace the more effective Artemisinin-based Combination Treatments (ACT) for the treatment of uncomplicated malaria.
“We have used strategies to fight malaria and they include sustained public service announcements, focusing on what individuals and groups can do to eliminate malaria. The strategies also include sleeping inside long lasting insecticidal treated nets, indoor residual spraying, larval sources management and ACT, among other methods,” Mohammed said.
He added that monitoring and evaluation, strong collaborations and partnerships with relevant bodies and organisations, effective coordination of malaria control and elimination activities, have also been involved in the management of malaria in pregnancy.