The House of Representatives has revealed that the country loses billions of naira to malaria yearly.
The PUNCH reports that the lawmakers decried that Nigeria was losing over $1 billion to the fight against malaria annually.
The parliament is also investigating the Federal Government’s National Malaria Elimination Programme for allegedly breaching the country’s local content policy and importing mosquito nets without approval.
At the plenary on Wednesday, the House unanimously adopted a motion jointly sponsored by three of its members, Benjamin Kalu, Yusuf Sununu and Abubakar Dahiru, titled ‘Call for Intervention in Nigeria’s Losses in the Fight against Malaria.’
In the motion, the lawmakers noted that Nigeria accounted for 27 per cent of malaria cases and 31 per cent of malaria deaths worldwide, with malaria killing no fewer than 200,000 Nigerians and afflicting 61 million others in 2021 alone.
“Despite efforts to contain malaria, Nigeria loses over $1bn yearly in the prevention and treatment of the disease as well as other costs,” they claimed.
According to the sponsors, Nigeria has, over the years, made notable progress in scaling up; and impact of malaria interventions as regards the utilisation of mosquito nets for children less than five years, has increased significantly, from 6 per cent to 49 per cent; and parasite prevalence reduced from 42 per cent in 2010 to 23 per cent in 2018.
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