Fighting Malaria in Rural Communities

“Doctor my baby body dey hot, he don dey cry since yester night and him body dey shake, doctor abeg help me, wetin do am?”

This is a common cry from a local farmer and mother to her healthcare provider. The inevitable diagnosis to these series of symptoms is usually malaria especially in a malaria crippled region like the one we live. Malaria kills about 1 million people every year with about 91% of the deaths in Africa, 86% being children under 5 years. The equivalent to this is really heart-breaking, it estimates that one child dies every 30 seconds.

Nigeria as a nation exerts up to 25% of the malaria disease burden in Africa and about 97% of the country’s population are at risk of the disease. The economic burden of malaria cannot be overemphasized. The direct health cost and productivity of malaria to the African economy is about $12 billion a year.

The rural communities and villages suffer most from the damaging effects of malaria as they are usually located in relatively inaccessible parts of the country. Also, malaria has often been described as the ‘disease of the poor’. With most of the people living in villages and rural communities being very low income earners, it is little wonder that the burden of the disease plagues the rural dwellers. Fighting malaria in rural communities is a key aspect of prevention, control and management of malaria nationwide.

Educating the local populace on the different ways malaria can be contracted and on the various ways of preventing and controlling the vector that causes the disease is paramount in the fight against malaria. The use of wide-ranging avenues such as local markets, village squares, age grade meetings and home-to-home visits for awareness promotion and education on malaria would increase coverage of these prevention interventions and improve the chances of significantly reducing the malaria burden within these communities. Collaboration of grass-root civil society organizations, local health centers, schools, places of worship and other community establishments will increase the chances of implementing these interventions successfully. Furthermore, ensuring that interventions are culturally sensitive to the communities is very important as this could be the factor that determines whether community members approve, accept and adhere to messages being passed across to them.

The power of the primary health centers in our local communities to serve as avenues for successfully fighting malaria has largely remained unexplored due to its limited capacity in terms of available resources (such as funds, human resources, materials, tools and equipment). Diagnostic equipment, cheap and readily available anti malaria drugs, insecticide treated mosquito nets and basic amenities like power and clean water are glaringly missing from many primary health care centers that are supposed to provide the basic health care needs to citizens of our local communities. Addressing these resource shortages in the communities will go a long way to support the fight against malaria.

Finally, economically empowering communities to enable them take charge and sustain the health interventions in their communities will most likely guarantee the success of the fight against malaria and other diseases.

REFERENCES

Okorosobo, Tuoyo: “Economic Burden of Malaria in six Countries of Africa”: European Journal of Business and Management. 2011; vol.3; iss.6; pg.42-63

World Health Organization (2012): “World Malaria Report 2012”. December, 2012

Country Coordinating Mechanism, Nigeria. Malaria. [Cited 2013 April, 24] available from:  http://www.ccmnigeria.org/index.php?Itemid=1&option=com_content&view=article&id=87