Malaria: Nigeria Needs $200m For 13 States

Minister of health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, has said that for Nigeria’s partners to release their funds for malaria eradication, the country needs $200million to take responsibility for the 13 states that are without funding.

The states are Abia, Anambra, Bayelsa, Borno, Edo, Ekiti, Enugu, Ondo, Kogi, Imo, Lagos, Rivers and FCT.

Ehanire said for full coverage and as a condition to release their own grants, partners want Nigeria to be responsible for these states, to make it a three-way project of the US Government, Global Fund and Government of Nigeria.

The minister stated this while debunking

the recent publications that the Federal Ministry of Health presented a budget of N82 billion for the procurement of mosquito nets, at a ministerial briefing on COVID-19 in Abuja.

Describing the publications as incorrect, misleading and not representative of the facts of the matter, Ehanire said the fund goes well beyond buying mosquito nets alone, saying it includes testing, treatment and other measures that helped to reduce malaria prevalence to 23 per cent in the country.

He said experts have estimated that the fund application will avert 78,000 deaths, prevent 14.5 million illnesses and reach 17.6 million women and children with malaria services in the 13 states.

“It is important to note that just 26.8per cent of the total amount is planned, by project design, for LLIN procurement,” he explained.

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