MALARIA EPIDEMIC IN NIGERIA
Udoka Obioha, student of 5th course
Scientific leader - senior teacher S.V. Pavlicheva
Sumy State University, Department of hygiene, ecology and social medicine
The incidence of malaria is very high in Nigeria due to its tropical location. A number of factors appear to be contributing to the resurgence of malaria: rapid spread of resistance of malaria parasites to chloroquine and the other quinolines; frequent armed conflicts and civil unrest in many countries, forcing large populations to settle under difficult conditions, sometimes in areas of high malaria transmission; migration (for reasons of agriculture, commerce, and trade) of nonimmune populations from nonmalarious and usually high to low parts of the same country where transmission is high; changing rainfall patterns as well as water development projects such as dams and irrigation schemes, which create new mosquito breeding sites; adverse socioeconomic conditions leading to a much reduced health budget and gross inadequacy of funds for drugs; high birth rates leading to a rapid increase in the susceptible population under 5 years of age; changes in the behavior of the vectors, particularly in biting habits, from indoor to outdoor biters. Adolescents and young adults are now dying of severe forms of the disease. Air travel has brought the threat of the disease to the doorsteps of industrialized countries, with an increasing incidence of imported cases and deaths from malaria by visitors to endemic-disease regions.
In 2009 Nigeria was accounted for one fourth of all estimated malaria cases in the WHO African region malaria causes around 250,000 deaths in children under five years in Nigeria, and it causes 11% of maternal deaths and 60% of out patient visits and 30% of hospitalization are malaria related. Around $870 million are used every year for prevention and treatment of malaria in Nigeria. The burden on the country’s economy is significant therefore it does not only affect people physically it affects mentally, psychologically and financially, which hinders the economic and social development of the country.