Making Nigeria Malaria-Free

As a little girl, growing up in a rural community, you have to struggle to survive, in an environment where life treats you the hard way. My parents wanted a good life, but everything didn’t go as planned. It was difficult growing up in a rural community where stagnant water is everywhere, an environment where mosquitoes have comfortable homes to breed. My mother whose priority is her children, is always concerned about the health and well-being of us, she made sure we always sleep under treated mosquito net. But I felt it was a cage. I wasn’t comfortable sleeping under a mosquito net.

With time, I started getting used to it. As a child I was ignorant of what my mother was doing, I never knew she was protecting us from the deadly malaria disease. Through my mother, I learnt how to help prevent malaria and how to save lives.

Malaria is a life – threatening disease worldwide. It is a deadly disease caused by the female anopheles Mosquito. It affects both children and adults around the world. Children and pregnant women are most at risk. It has jeopardised the economy and health sector of the nation, people die every day from malaria.

But malaria is a non-contagious disease which can be curbed. In other to tackle the disease, Nigeria needs proper planning in distribution of health workers, drugs and information.
Provision and distribution of bed nets can prevent mosquito bites, and insecticides will help prevent malaria. But distributing these things won’t eliminate the disease completely, it will only reduce the spread. But creating awareness among the people, educating them about the deadly disease, and also training them on how to dispose waste properly and creating drainage system to prevent mosquitoes from breeding will help tackle malaria.

This World Malaria Day is to mark and celebrate the successes and collective effort put together to fight malaria. I hope our leaders will make more effort to improve the health facilities to make Nigeria “Zero Malaria.” Let’s work together and draw the line against malaria.

––Maryam Buba, Department of Mass Communication, University of Maiduguri