Seeks more global support to eliminate malaria
About 28,906,428 million children in 411 eligible councils in the country received Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention (SMC) in 2023 to prevent them from coming down with malaria.
SMC is the intermittent administration of a curative dose of anti-malarial medicine to children at high risk of severe malaria living in areas with seasonal transmission, regardless whether they are infected with malaria or not.
Meanwhile, Federal Government has solicited the support of global stakeholders to ensure sustainability of SMC, which has contributed significantly to the drive towards eliminating malaria in endemic countries.
Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof Mohammed Ali Pate, who stated this, yesterday, at the Annual Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention (SMC) Alliance Meeting in Abuja, observed that the gathering for malaria endemic countries, mostly the African region that accounts for 94 per cent of global burden (World Malaria Report 2023), was a key step towards the reversal of the scourge of this public health menace that has killed significant number of children and pregnant women, among other vulnerable groups.
Pate noted that the Federal Ministry of Health, through the National Malaria Elimination Programme (NMEP), adopted SMC as one of its drug-based malaria preventive strategy in 2014 and had truly demonstrated remarkable, unprecedented and dogged approach at implementing SMC over the last 10 years.
Also speaking, the National Malaria Elimination Programme (NMEP) SMC Focal Person in Nigeria, Emmanuel Shakarau, stated that Nigeria was on track with the SMC interventions targeting children under five to prevent them from coming down with malaria. Shakarau noted that the programme targeted rainy season when the transmission of malaria infection seemed to be on the increase.
