By Gabriel Chy Alonta
Prof. Dennis Nnanna Aribodor of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, has called for a joint effort of stakeholders to eliminate malaria disease in Nigeria when he delivered the 78th Inaugural Lecture of the University on Thursday, March 23, 2023.
Aribodor, who is a professor of public health parasitology and immediate past chairperson of Unizik branch of ASUU, spoke on the title, “Malaria Story and Challenges to Malaria Elimination in Nigeria”. The academic exercise took place at the ASUU-NAU Secretariat of the University.
The 78th Inaugural Lecturer identified malaria as the number one health problem in Nigeria, and Africa in general, while decrying that the disease had continued to cripple the economic development in Nigeria. He then identified lack of political will, lack of leadership, inadequate funding and over dependence on foreign partners, and so on, as constraints to malaria elimination in Nigeria.
To eliminate malaria in Nigeria, Prof. Aribodor called for a concerted effort of all stakeholders to have a malaria-free nation like Algeria, while urging the government at all levels and organized private sector to allocate more resources to intensify the fight against malaria, which, according to him, is both treatable and completely evitable disease.
It is worthy to note that Malaria is a disease caused by a parasite of the Plasmodium family, and it’s one of sub-Saharan Africa’s most common poverty-related diseases, and one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality among young children in the region.
