Expert advocates improved malaria data, funding

By Fatai Kasali

The Special Adviser to the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare on Malaria, Mr Ologbenga Mokuolu has called for an improvement in the data on malaria in Nigeria to show the authentic figure of the disease

Mokolu stated this during an interview with  the press on Monday in Lagos in commemoration of World Malaria Day.

According to him, World Malaria Day, which is celebrated annually on April 25, is to highlight global efforts to end the disease, the need for sustained political commitment and continued investment in its control and elimination.

The theme for this year’s celebration is, ‘Accelerating the fight against malaria for a more equitable world.’

He also stressed on the need to always justify the culture of diagnostic testing before treating malaria to document actual cases.

“In a situation where we continue to practice empirical treatment for all fever, we are going to create a false record that exaggerates the number of malaria cases.

“If 10 people come in with fever, there’s a tendency for a health worker who didn’t conduct a test on the patient to diagnose seven for malaria, and that’s what the record would reflect.

“But if you test, you will be surprised that maybe two or a maximum four out of the 10 test positive for malaria,” he said.

Mr Mokuolu noted that more in-country information had been gathered due to the entomological monitoring set-up.

He said integrating a multisectoral approach in the malaria response had become crucial to achieving an impactful intervention.

According to him, primary healthcare centres are being strengthened across the country to prevent, detect and reduce the burden of the disease.

The professor also complained that budgetary allocation to malaria had been low at the federal and state levels and called for an improvement in funding to stimulate progress.

In a related development a consultant medical parasitologist, Wellington  Oyibo said research by his team across the country showed that primary source data on malaria at health facilities were inaccurate.

Mr Oyibo complained  that overdiagnosis and over-treatment of malaria were prevalent in health facilities nationwide, as all fevers are treated as malaria, with strong economic and life-threatening effects on patients and communities.

He said training and supervision of healthcare workers were critical to improve the quality of data analysed and reviewed for targeted interventions.