Sir: It was quite shocking to read in The Guardian newspaper of April 25, 2023 that Nigeria spends as much as N2.04 trillion annually to combat malaria, but despite the colossal resources thousands of Nigerians are still dying of malaria.

Nigeria suffers the world’s greatest burden of malaria with approximately 51 million cases and 207,000 deaths reported yearly. Malaria remains a significant burden in Nigeria, particularly concerning pregnant women and children under the age of 5 years.

It could be deduced from the above that Malaria is not only a public health challenge, its direct and indirect impact on the economy cannot be overemphasised considering the health care expenditure as well as the attendant impact like waning productivity occasioned by illness and death. It also affects foreign investment and tourism significantly.

Some researchers have also corroborated the above exposition that malaria is not only a public health challenge, that its consequence on the economy is too distinctive to be ignored. In the Nigerian communities where malaria is endemic, the impacts are loss of resources, time, health of household members and, in worst cases, death. The researchers stressed further that 97% of Nigerians live under the risk of malaria and 76% in high transmission areas; 50% of the population estimated to have at least an episode of malaria yearly.

Malaria is caused by a parasite called Plasmodium. Anopheles mosquito is the vector that carries the Plasmodium parasite. The egg larva that metamorphosed to mosquito is found in waterlogged areas, gutters and broken bottles or in cans.

Some social thinkers have posited that the first stage of insanity is doing the same things the same ways over the years and expecting different results. If over the years colossal resources have been expended in combating malaria without commensurate results, is it not high time we re-strategised in our approach of intervention from curative to preventive for a better result?

It is an established fact that various mass housing initiatives to provide decent houses to Nigerians have always been a drop in the ocean or more effective in rhetoric than in practice. To this end, emphasis should be more on a preventive approach that factors the kind of habitation or environment that Nigerians live in. It is evident that poverty is a major factor in malaria prevention, and poor habitation is a function of poverty.

The more urban an area is, the lower the cases of malaria. Over 70% of Nigerians are poorly sheltered and as such many reside in waterlogged areas with blocked drainages. These are veritable sources of larva that eventually metamorphose into mosquitos.

On the above premise, if N500 billion i.e., about half of the N2.04 trillion is expended annually on construction of culverts and gutters in all communities nation-wide, it is expected that malaria cases would be reduced considerably.

The state and local governments should complement the Federal Government by being involved in development control. Their involvement in assisting and ensuring that individuals build standard gutters and drainage systems around their habitation would go a long way in reducing cases of malaria in the country.

The defunct sanitary inspectorate system should be resuscitated as well in all local government areas to ensure that Nigerians keep their environment clean.

With this preventive approach, there would be no place for anopheles mosquitoes to thrive and malaria cases would be reduced to a tolerable and inconsequential level.

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