New policy on malaria eradication underway – Minister

The Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, said plans have reached an advanced stage for the adoption of a new policy on malaria control.
The minister said this on Wednesday in Abuja at the opening of the First National Catholic Health Summit, organised as part of activities to mark the church’s 120 years of health care delivery in Nigeria.
Represented by of the Head of Public Health Department in the ministry, Bridget Okoeguale, Chukwu said that under the new policy, focus would be shifted from control to eradication of malaria.
According to the minister, the new policy, which has been approved by the Federal Executive Council, focuses more on destroying the larva rather than controlling the spread by mosquitoes.
He said that the use of treated nets to control malaria was not yielding the desired result, hence the need for the adoption of another approach to malaria eradication.
He said: “We have observed that the method of using treated nets to control malaria has not yielded the needed results because many of our people have yet to form the habit of using the nets.
“The cost of buying the nets in addition to what is required to get people to use them have given us the cause to think of better ways of managing malaria.
“We, therefore, believe that a policy that will find methods of eradicating malaria by destroying the larva will be most appropriate for our system.
“It is better to tackle the cause than to control the disease using nets.”
Chukwu said the Federal Government acknowledged the contributions of the church in the past 120 years in the area of health care delivery, noting that it would welcome any form of partnership to improve the sector.
He said that the church, through it missionary health workers, had been instrumental to the implementation of government’s health programmes and policies at the grass roots.
The minister said that effective health care delivery at the grass root could not be successful without the support of faith-based organisations such as the church.
He said the federal Ministry of Health would always carry faith-based organisations with proven track records along in the implementation of its policies and programmes.
Earlier in his remark, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa, attributed some of the challenges experienced in the health sector to lack of cooperation among stakeholders.
Okowa said the absence of some big names at the summit was an indication that stakeholders had yet to realise the need for synergy to move the sector forward.
Okowa said the committee was in total support of the proposed new policy on malaria eradication.
He said the success rate in the fight against malaria would have been higher if some of the resources spent on buying treated nets were put into the design and implementation of other approaches.
He lauded the achievements of the Catholic health services in the past 120 years, noting that it had been responsible partly for some of the effective health advocacy programmes in rural communities.
The President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria, Most Rev. Ignatius Kaigama, who spoke via a video conference, urged stakeholders to push for a change in the approach to health care delivery in Nigeria.
Kaigama said that government and other interested parties should engage and collaborate with faith-based organisations like the church in the implementation of its health programmes.
Kaigama also called on government and all Nigerians to endorse the Catholic church’s efforts by scaling up health care delivery through enhanced partnerships.
Anthony Chukwuka, who chaired the event, called for a legislation that would support the partnership between government and faith-based organisations in the delivery of health care to Nigerians.
Chukwuka said that the emerging challenges in the sector required the highest level of networking among experts, noting that no particular segment of the society could handle the challenges alone.
Missionary health workers, the clergy and other stakeholders in the sector attended the opening session of the meeting.