United States Agency for International Development has said $90 million will be invested in Nigeria to tackle malaria in eight underprivileged states.
A statement by USAID on Wednesday said that its Mission Director in Nigeria, Anne Patterson joined the Coordinator of Nigeria’s National Malaria Elimination Programme, Dr Perpetua Uhomoibhi, to unveil a new action to control the country’s leading killer of children – malaria – in rural areas of eight vulnerable states.
The eight states are Akwa Ibom, Benue, Cross River, Ebonyi, Nasarawa, Oyo, Plateau, and Zamfara.
The statement said that over the next five years, “the $90 million President’s Malaria Initiative for States (PMI-S) will serve as the flagship activity for the global U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) in Nigeria”.
“In Nigeria, members of low-income households in rural areas are seven times more likely to contract malaria than urban dwellers because these communities also have limited access to prevention and treatment services, it is critically important to reach these populations to reduce malaria,” Patterson said.
However, the statement also explained that since 2010, the US presidential malaria initiative “has provided $712 million in investments, including the distribution of over 61 million insecticide-treated bed nets (ITN), which are now in 43 per cent of all households, twice the rate before the intervention”.
The statement reads. “In partnership with state governments, PMI-S will improve the quality of and access to malaria services, promote evidence-based decision-making, boost drug drug-based prevention and treatments, and strengthen health systems and program management.
“The new activity builds on the success of earlier PMI-supported malaria interventions in Nigeria, which has helped the national rate of malaria infection decrease by 16 per cent – even higher for children under five – since PMI began operating in Nigeria. PMI has also helped increase the likelihood a pregnant woman receives malaria prophylaxis fourfold.”