Nigeria accounted for about 25 per cent of the global burden of
malaria in 2018, a new malaria report by the World Health Organisation
has shown.
The report, however, noted a global drop in malaria cases last year.
The World malaria report 2019 released on Wednesday showed that though
there was a dip in the number of malaria cases reported in 2018 as
compared to the previous year, there is a need for more efforts and
funds to fight the disease.
According to the report, 228 million malaria cases were reported in
2018, which is marginally lower than the number of cases in 2017 (231
million). Nigeria, 18 other countries in sub-Saharan Africa, and India
accounted for about 85 per cent of the global burden of the disease in
2018.
The prevalence of malaria remains a major concern among countries,
international health organisations and donor partners who have been
working tirelessly to eliminate the disease.
According to the WHO report, six African countries – Nigeria (25 per
cent), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (12 per cent), Uganda (5
per cent), and Côte d’Ivoire, Mozambique and Niger (4 per cent each) –
accounted for more than half of all malaria cases worldwide.
Though the report showed that the number of pregnant women and
children in sub-Saharan Africa sleeping under insecticide-treated bed
nets and benefiting from preventive medicine for malaria has increased
significantly in recent years, there is still a need for accelerated
efforts to reduce infections and deaths in the hardest-hit countries.
Pregnancy reduces a woman’s immunity to malaria, making her more
susceptible to infection and at greater risk of illness, severe
anaemia, and death.
WHO said maternal malaria also interferes with the growth of the
fetus, increasing the risk of premature delivery and low birth weight
– a leading cause of child mortality.
WHO Director-General, Tedros Ghebreyesus, said “pregnant women and
children are the most vulnerable to malaria, and we cannot make
progress without focusing on these two groups.”
The report estimated that in 2018, 11 million pregnant women were
infected with malaria in areas of moderate and high disease
transmission in sub-Saharan Africa. As a result, nearly 900,000
children were born with low birth weight.
Despite the encouraging signs seen in the use of preventive tools in
pregnant women and children, there was no improvement in the global
rate of malaria infections in the period 2014 to 2018.
Inadequate funding remains a major barrier to future progress. In
2018, total funding for malaria control and elimination reached an
estimated $2.7 billion, falling far short of the $5 billion funding
target of the global strategy.
The Chief Executive Officer, RBMPartnership to End Malaria,
Abdourahmane Diallo, said “Continued global investment and commitment
towards a world free of malaria have been critical to sustaining the
progress the malaria community has made to date – without these global
efforts, malaria cases and deaths would be significantly higher.”
