The Borno State Government has confirmed 1,071,902 cases of malaria with 951 deaths in four years. The recorded cases of malaria which were between 2017 and 2020, had the highest last year with 370 deaths. The Chief of Staff to Governor Babagana Zulu, who doubles as Overseeing Commissioner of Health, Prof. Isa Marte disclosed this Sunday in Maiduguri to mark 2021 World Malaria Day with the theme: “Zero Malaria-Draw the line against it.” He said there has been an upward trend of cases in the last four years, but there were improvements in the health reporting system and training of workers. While speaking on malaria related deaths, he said: “There is a downward trend in malaria related deaths “This could be attributed to improvement in early diagnosis and prompt treatment of malaria cases of 1.1 million.” According to him, malaria remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality in Nigeria, as it accounts for 20% of global malaria burden of over 80,000 deaths. On the 10-year malaria eradication plan, he said: “We’ve finalized a decade long plan to scale up all malaria interventions through soft credit support from the World Bank this year.” He noted that household ownership of treated nets hit 70.4%, while general usage of nets and among pregnant women stood at 49.8% and 55.8% respectively. Besides, he added: “We had four rounds of uninterrupted Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention (SMC) intervention in the last four years. He warned that if people don’t avail themselves of health delivery services, their impact will remain a mirage. Meanwhile, he said that the state government has budgeted N350 million this year for the hospitals’ drugs revolving scheme. According to him, there is free drugs for children under five and pregnant women in Borno hospitals and other health centres. He said that the National Health Fund (NHF) and World Health Organisation (WHO) supported the state government, where over two million children between the ages of three months and five years were immunized every year.
