Dr Chioma Amajor, the Chairman of the National Malaria Control Programme, said on Friday that more than 200,000 Nigerians died of malaria annually.
Amajorsaid at the commemoration of World Malaria Day in Rivers in Port Harcourt that the figure was worrisome and that something urgent needed to be done.
She said the programme had distributed more than? 60.4 million Insecticide Treated Nets (ITN) nationwide and advised Nigerians to fumigate their environments and sleep inside the nets as a way of preventing mosquito bites.
She said the fight against malaria was the responsibility of all stakeholders and that it should be treated with effective drugs.
“All of us must work together and fight malaria in order to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the health sector by 2015,” Amajor said.
Dr Tarilah Tebepah, the Chairman of the board of Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), said the organisation planned to spend more than N1billion during the year? on health.
?Tebepah, who was the Chairman of the occasion, said NDDC would partner with corporate organisations to improve the health of the people.?
He commended the state government’s health programme, saying that it had planted the seed against malaria in the Niger Delta region.
The Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu,? said various governments and corporate organisations, had in the past 20 years, worked hard on the elimination of malaria.
He said more than 50 million ITNs had been distributed in the country since the Roll- Back-Malaria programme began.
The minister also explained that the disease had been reduced and that it was time to eliminate the scourge.
Chukwusaid it was compulsory for all sick persons to undergo malaria test, adding that the cost of treating it in public hospitals had been reduced.
He said the campaign against the disease was for both the governments and the private sector and expressed optimism that it would be eliminated by 2015.
?The theme of the World Malaria Day, which held on April 25, was? ‘’Sustain gains, Save lives: Invest in Malaria’’, while the slogan was ‘’let’s work together.’’
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