By Asma’u Ahmad
A Malaria expert, Prof. Wellington Oyibo, on Monday called for a change of socio-cultural and environmental attitudes toward malaria as it would help Nigeria to attain its 2020 Pre-elimination phase goal.
Professor Oyibo, who is the Head of ANDI Centre of Excellence for Malaria Diagnosis, College of Medicine, University of Lagos, told newsmen that though Nigeria was making progress, more efforts were needed.
Prof. Wellington Oyibo
He spoke ahead of the 2017 World Malaria Day which comes up annually on April 25.
World Malaria Day is commemorated on every April 25. It recognises global efforts to control malaria. The theme for this year’s celebration is “End Malaria for Good.”
He said: “We are surely making progress but this progress will demand more efforts. When you are thinking about reaching a target, be it pre- elimination, elimination or eradication, the efforts must be concerted and out of the box; everyone has to be involved.
“Science is good, but the socio-cultural way we look at malaria disease makes it not to look important and so, there is urgent need to change that. There is need for information; there has to be continuous massive awareness on the dynamics, causes and prevention of malaria,’’ he told media men.
“There is need to also debunk certain myths on the causes of malaria; for example, some people feel that they will get malaria if they stay under the sun.
“Some also believe that excessive consumption of palm-oil or some types of fruits can cause malaria; many also feel that any fever is malaria fever; all these have to be changed.
“Malaria is established to have the highest index of suspicion for all cases of fever, especially through clinical diagnosis. So, it is a public health disease because in Nigeria it is still under control; we still have the goal to see how to reduce the disease burden remarkably,” Oyibo added.
