According to US President’s Malaria Initiative, PMI, annual report, infant fatality rate has decreased in Nigeria by sixteen percent.
Ekwi Ajide of our Abuja Bureau, reports that the US President’s Malaria Initiative, began providing malaria control support to Nigeria since2010.
The PMI had supported Nigeria in the distribution of more than one hundred million long lasting insecticide treated mosquito bed nets, which remains one of the most effective measures to preventing malaria and are now in use in forty-three percent of Nigerian households, up from just twenty-three percent at the start of the initiative.
According to USAID Mission Director, Stephen Haykin, who oversees PMI activities in collaboration with CDC leadership, malaria is one of the leading causes of death among children in Nigeria.
He expressed joy at seeing that the partnership with Nigeria has had clear success, and pledged to continue the support with proven methods of prevention and treatment against malaria.
The Mission Director lamented that malaria remains an onerous burden among the poorest and the most vulnerable echelons of Nigerian society and can pose a life-threatening risk to both mother and baby during pregnancy adding that it can also cause adults and children to miss work and school, thereby contributing to economic hardship.
PMI works with Nigeria’s National Malaria Elimination Program to scale-up proven cost-effective and life-saving malaria control interventions centered on LLIN distribution, intermittent preventive treatment for pregnant women, diagnostic testing and treatment.
In 2019, PMI invested seventy million Dollars to assist Nigeria in the fight against malaria, distributed more than six point nine million insecticide-treated mosquito nets, distributed eight point six million doses of prophylaxis to pregnant women, one point six million doses to children during the rainy season and twenty-four million doses of treatment at the facility and community levels.
Additionally, fifteen point three million rapid malaria test kits were provided to help health workers properly diagnose and treat patients.
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