Fighting Malaria in Africa

It is conservatively estimated that Nigeria alone loses about 100,000 souls to malaria every year. This figure does not include those who die without access to medical facilities or national records – like my kith and kin in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. If there existed medical or statistical facilities in all our villages, the figure would have been at least three times as high. Not to worry, because we are comforted by these under-reported figures.

Alarming as these figures may be, the international community does not think there is enough reason to worry. After all, malaria is an African problem so nobody in the advanced world thinks it is a problem except that people like us think it is a bigger problem than HIV/AIDS! You will appreciate what I am driving at if you collate the African statistics of all malaria victims in all of Africa in the last five years. I am sure it is ten times more than the HIV/AIDS statistics in the whole world up till today and even beyond!

What do we get from the advanced world? Studied silence! When their conscience won’t let them sleep, they tell us to use insecticide-treated bed nets and keep our environments tidy! Who does not know that it would be a lot easier to develop an anti-malaria vaccine than HIV vaccine. We have been told that the HIV vaccine is difficult to develop because the virus mutates – yes changes – with time. Fortunately the malaria parasites do not mutate so what stops the world from developing an anti-malaria vaccine? Political will.

If the world devoted a tiny fraction of the resources pumped into fighting the HIV/AIDS problem to fight malaria, I am sure there will be more results to show. I am not saying it is not necessary to fight HIV/AIDS but all I am saying is the fight against malaria should be globalized. Malaria can be wiped out or at least brought under control with that kind of money and resources. Yes, I said so.

Tata, everybody.

Napoleon