The House of Representatives has called for domestic financing and locally manufactured malaria vaccines to stop the disease’s menace.

Benjamin Kalu, the spokesman for the House of Representatives, made the call in a statement issued in Abuja against the backdrop of the 2023 world malaria day celebration.

He said the Ninth National Assembly identified a lack of domestic financing and lack of use of local content in terms of production and patronage of local manufacturing of LLINs and antimalarial drugs as a key challenge.

According to him, to address this, over $300 million was approved under the World Bank and the Islamic Bank IMPACT projects to address and complement donor support.

“However, this effort is at a slow speed in implementation despite the passage of the legislative resolution in December 2021 to access the credit facility, none of the essential commodities has been procured,” noted Mr Kalu.

The legislator explained that four African countries, including Nigeria, accounted for over half of all malaria deaths worldwide. 

He stressed that Nigeria alone accounted for 31.3 per cent of global malaria deaths.

Mr Kalu said malaria remained a significant public health challenge in Nigeria, with an estimated 97 million cases and 300,000 deaths annually.

He said although progress had been made in reducing the burden of the disease, adding that much work still needed to be done to eliminate it and that the key areas of challenge to address the malaria burden in Nigeria have been donor dependence for malaria intervention in the country.

(NAN)