Preventive interventions key to end malaria, says Medical practitioner
... preventive interventions such as treated nets, use of insecticides and vaccination were antidotes to the malaria onslaughts.
Dr Okai Aku, the Executive Director, Planned Parenthood Federation of Nigeria (PPFN), says preventive interventions are key to ending malaria in the country.
Aku said in Abuja on Monday on the occasion of the 2022 World Malaria Day (WMD) that preventive interventions such as treated nets, use of insecticides and vaccination were antidotes to the malaria onslaughts.
Malaria is a disease caused by a plasmodium parasite, transmitted by the bite of infected female Anopheles mosquito.
The severity of malaria varies based on the species of plasmodium, with symptoms such as chills, fever and sweating, usually occurring a few weeks after being bitten.
Supreme reports that World Malaria Day is annually observed on April 25 around the globe to raise awareness about the pandemic that has continued to claim lives and send millions to hospital.
It is a day marked by all member states of the World Health Organisation (WHO) to underscore the collective energy and commitments of the global malaria community in uniting around the common goal of a world free of malaria.
The global observance has "Harness Innovation to Reduce the Malaria Disease Burden and Save Lives" as its 2022 theme.
The theme is a call for investments and innovation that will bring new vector control approaches, diagnostics, antimalarial medicines and other tools to speed the pace of progress against malaria.
The Adamawa commissioner, therefore, said that the major strategy, among others, put in place to control malaria in the state included sensitisation on environmental sanitation, prompt diagnosis and treatment.
According to him, those preventive measures are necessary for the prevention of the disease.
He added that "prevention they say is better than cure, so more efforts should be targeted at providing preventive interventions to end malaria."
The PPFN executive director, who urged Nigerians to always use treated mosquito nets, insecticides and go for vaccination, also stressed the need to always keep the environment clean to avoid breeding of mosquitoes.
This is because people get malaria by being bitten by an infected female Anopheles mosquito, as only the Anopheles specie can transmit the disease and they must have been infected through previous blood meal from an infected person.