Health
AN Environmental Expert, Mr Francis Nwapa, has advised the Nigeria End Malaria Council (NEMC) to work with environmental experts in the fight against malaria in the country.
Nwapa is a member of the Pest Control Association of Nigeria (PECAN) and Convener #EndMalariainNigeria.
He gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Monday.
He opined that the collaboration would help to eradicate the vector that causes malaria.
He urged the Federal Government to empower the Environmental Health Registration Council of Nigeria (EHORECON), through the Federal Ministry of Environment, to liaise with professional bodies like Pest PECAN to curb the vector.
He said the alliance would involve drawing a national blueprint with the construction of modern drainages as well as solid and liquid waste management to curb the vector.
“To roll back malaria, we must roll back mosquito as prevention is better and cheaper than cure,” Nwapa said.
He further said that the country recorded the highest malaria case and mortality globally.
According to him, the disease has continued to cause preventable loss of human lives, especially among pregnant women and children.
He regretted that World Bank, UNICEF, UNDP and WHO united to organise Roll Back Malaria in 1998 but the disease had continued to claim lives annually, in spite of the amount invested.
Nwapa said that although the National Malaria Elimination Programme was domiciled in the National Malaria and Vector Control Division in the Department of Public Health of the Federal Ministry of Health, yet the purpose of establishing the agency had yet to be realised.
“It’s our view that constituting such council of businessmen and women may likely be making business out of malaria.
“Malaria is transmitted by the female Anopheles Mosquito, which survives on water and this makes it purely an environmental problem.
“For too long, the government has neglected the factors that enhance breeding space for mosquitos and the involvement of environmental health professionals as major partners in eliminating malaria.
“Government has been focusing efforts in fighting malaria than the vector that transmits it,” Nwapa said.
He said that the fight against malaria was often spearhead by medical personnel and in some cases lawyers and politicians, who had no knowledge in integrated vector control and larvae source management.
He argued that NEMC comprised businessmen/women, politicians and individuals without experts in environmental health and professional bodies, like the Pest Association of Nigeria.
He, therefore, appealed to the Federal Government to focus on vector control through proper water management, modern drainage construction and waste management to end malaria in the country. (NAN)
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Tags: #EndMalariainNigeria Francis Nwapa NEMC PECAN UNICEF WHO World Bank
