Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has advised health authorities in Nigeria to ensure all children aged from three months to ten years are given seasonal malaria chemoprophylaxis.

The humanitarian organisation gave the advice against the backdrop of a spike in malaria cases even into the dry season this year in Borno State, northeast Nigeria.

Nigeria accounts for 25 percent of the global malaria burden and 24 percent of the world’s malaria deaths, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) 2019 World Malaria Report.

In the report, WHO indicated that Nigeria had led 11 countries that, together, accounted for approximately 70 percent of the world’s malaria burden in 2017.

It is understood that peak malaria season usually takes place during the rainy season from August to mid-October, when mosquitoes breed, after which patient numbers begin to decrease.

But MSF, in a statement, said its team working in the country’s northeast region had reported a spike in malaria cases during the dry season.

‘In response to the high numbers of people with malaria and the shortage of antimalarials, we have provided the Ministry of Health and other organisations with 120,000 antimalarial tablets after Covid-19 restrictions disrupted or delayed the import of antimalarials to Nigeria’, MSF said in the statement.

‘Our teams have also been supporting the Ministry of Health by carrying out seasonal malaria chemoprophylaxis in Gwange district and in informal camps for displaced people in Maiduguri.

Development Diaries learnt that the campaign was aimed at children aged between three months and five years.

‘MSF delivered more than 350,000 doses in the first three rounds, while the Nigerian Ministry of Health had planned to reach around two million children in total’, the statement added.

The fourth round of the campaign was meant to be carried out during the rainy season in mid-October, but shortages of medical supplies meant that it was delayed until mid-November, according to the statement.

‘We are a family of eight and we have only two mosquito nets – they are not enough for us’, MSF quoted Bintu, a resident of Banki camp, as saying.

It was learnt that Bintu’s son Ali died of malaria some years ago, when he was just two years old.

‘All my [other] children recently had seasonal malaria chemoprophylaxis and they are all doing fine’, she added.

Source: MSF

Photo source: MSF/Abdulkareem Yakubu