Experts renew drive for widespread ITN adoption,
Public health experts in Nigeria are urging citizens to adopt insecticide-treated nets and improve sanitation to combat a rise in malaria cases during the rainy season. The campaign highlights the severe health risks and economic burden of the disease, underscored by the tragic loss of a child to the illness.
Why it matters
Malaria remains a leading cause of mortality in tropical regions, and seasonal spikes require urgent public health interventions to prevent preventable deaths.
From Timothy Olanrewaju, Maiduguri The rains are back in full force, with all the regular challenges of the season: stagnant water in exposed containers of all kinds, puddles and blocked drainages across many cities, towns and communities. For mosquitoes, the rainy season provides the perfect period for breeding as stagnant water dots the landscape, ready to welcome female mosquitoes to lay eggs, in continuation of the lifecycle of the pesky insects that besiege people. Dr Charles Staying outside the home in the evening hours in any part of northern Nigeria, especially Borno and Yobe states, during this season is an invitation to be liberally bitten by mosquitoes, the vector that transmits plasmodium, the parasite that causes malaria in human beings. Most families fear malaria. No one wishes to go through the pain, headache, fever, body weakness or sometimes, vomiting and other discomforting symptoms of the parasitic disease.
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