The United States government, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), has reiterated its continued commitment to control and fight against malaria in Nigeria.
USAID/Nigeria Resident Advisor President’s Malaria Initiative, (PMI), Dr. Jules Mihigo, stated this at the Close-out Dissemination of the $7.8 million President’s Malaria Initiative -Vectorlink Project, in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital.
The five-year project launched in September 2017, provided technical expertise for the surveillance of organisms that host malaria-causing parasites and insecticide resistance monitoring across Nigeria.
According to Dr. Mihigo, Nigeria accounts for 27 percent of malaria cases and 31 percent of deaths within the period of 2022, however, the Nigerian government has not relented in its effort to combat the disease, and the US government is in full support of the efforts.
“Nigeria’s National Malaria Strategic Plan 2021-2025 aims to achieve a parasite prevalence of less than 10 percent and reduce mortality attributable to malaria to less than 50 deaths per 1,000 live births by 2025, hence, USAID reaffirms our commitment through PMI to support the holistic approach of the national malaria control program to eliminate malaria in Nigeria, notably through vector control.”
“We would like to thank the National Malaria Elimination Programme for the unwavering leadership and our partners at VectorLink for the quality and diligence of your work over the past five years. Malaria control in endemic countries remains a U.S. foreign assistance priority and a critical component of the U.S. government’s global health efforts.
“The U.S. Government is committed to collaborating with local governments, international organizations, the private sector, and local civil society and faith organizations to achieve success in implementation and control of malaria,” he said.
According to Dr. Jules Mihigo, as the PMI in Nigeria celebrates the achievements under VectorLink, they should as well consider the critical lessons learned from the activity that will be carried forward into the PMI-Evolve activity, starting from August 1st.
“The US Malaria Focus under PMI-Evolve As PMI commemorates the close out of the five-year VectorLink project, we are thrilled to announce that USAID-PMI will continue to engage and support the National Malaria Elimination Programme under the PMI-Evolve project, which commences on August 1.”
“PMI-Evolve will build the capacity of community members to understand, accept and sustain the use of vector control interventions, thereby reducing mosquito bites and malaria burden.”
“In addition, PMI-Evolve will continue supporting planning, implementing, and monitoring of malaria vector control programs, including entomological monitoring, insecticide-treated mosquito nets, and larval source management.”
“The project will strengthen the capacity of local institutions, including national malaria programs, district health offices, and research institutions to independently conduct vector control programs.”
“PMI-Evolve will also be responsible for program evaluation and conducting operations research on new vector control innovations. Gender equity and social inclusion and climate change initiatives will be incorporated as cross-cutting themes with the overall goal of accelerating the elimination of malaria,” he said.
Awareness Creation
While speaking on awareness creation, the Country Director Vector Link, Dr. Adedayo Oduola, noted that “The Nigerian government has been supportive because they provide the structure and the kind of support that is been needed. You know this work is research-based, therefore the government can invest in research to support the implementation of the outcome of these activities, you have the PIs that are doing this work in the states but there is room for more. What we are trying to do at the PMI is to generate data to inform the best control tools that can be applied based on evidence data generated from different locations in Nigeria. That’s why we have 15 states that PMI is supporting. We have routing data that is generated to determine the behaviour of those mosquitoes, which can inform whether you need to bring in IRS on board”.
Dr Oduola added that, “Some of this information provided are for policymakers because they make decisions, the rural people who are the end receivers don’t make decisions,. But the program at NMEP and the state are responsible for using this information to support what will protect the people adequately. The rural people need to be fully involved. To this our second project at PMI is going to be community involved, they will be fully involved in decision making”. He added
On her part, the National Coordinator of, the National Malarial Eradication Programme (NMEP). Dr. Perpetual Uhomoibhi noted that the Nigerian government is collaborating with partners to achieve the desired goal.
“We are fully involved, so we are collaborating with the Vectorlink Project, they are involved in a technical capacity for the national programme and the data from the internet sites across the country to inform the kind of net that we distribute because there are some of the nets that we use to distribute that we have found out, the vectors are now resistant, the chemicals in them are now resistant to mosquitoes. So, we are using data from these sites to reform the type of net that we are distributing across the 15 states. We are working very closely with them, we go there for oversight, and monitoring to know what they are doing in that different settlement where the project has been working across the country, to ensure that information and the data we got are quality data and we will be able to use that information to make quality decision”.
The USAID PMI-VectorLink project supported routine vector surveillance in six states and insecticide resistance monitoring in 16 states, including five non-PMI focus states (FCT, Enugu, Bayelsa, Kaduna, and Rivers) to support vector control decisions.
Dominica Nwabufo
