Dr Godwin Ntadom, the National Coordinator of the Nigerian National Malaria Elimination Programme (NMEP), has stated that it’s important for individuals to always confirm their fever is malaria before taking medicines to treat it.
NMEP, an organisation that provides impactful malaria control interventions, made this disclosure during a tweet chat with between Ntadom, and Esther Adekeye, a renowned Media Personality.
The tweet chat and Instagram Live was held in commemoration of World Malaria Day, highlighting the critical importance of advancing health equity, gender equality, and human rights in the mosquito-borne disease responses worldwide.
In the course of the KimaniOffAir tweet chat, Ntadom, when asked how people can know if their malaria is fever, explained that Rapid diagnostic tests (RDT) are the way to go.
“Confirm if your fever is malaria by always testing every fever using Rapid diagnostic tests (RDT) to confirm it is malaria before taking malaria medicines,” Ntadom wrote via NMEP’s X handle, @NMEPNigeria.
While maintaining that malaria is curable, especially when the right medicines are taken, Ntadom disclosed preventive measures individuals can take to protect themselves, alongside their households against the mosquito-borne disease.
“By maintaining a clean environment and getting rid of all mosquito breeding sites, ensuring all water containers for domestic use are covered properly. Also, ensure every member of your household sleeps inside an Insecticide-treated net (ITN) every night. Insist that pregnant women around you register for antenatal care early to receive SP that protects the mother and unborn baby from malaria.
“Not only that, residents of the northern and middle belt regions of Nigeria should present eligible children to be administered malaria prevention therapies as recommended,” Ntadom stated.
The NMEP National Coordinator, however, identified the common symptoms of malaria as -fever, chills, headache, and fatigue, which it noted are caused by the spread of the disease from an infected person to others through the bite of an infected female Anopheles mosquito.
Identifying the challenges in the fight against malaria in Nigeria, Ntadom stated that they include -the widening funding gap for essential malaria interventions, sub-optimal uptake of interventions among vulnerable groups like children and pregnant women, weakening health systems responsible for delivering effective primary healthcare interventions, and increasing mosquito resistance to insecticides used in Insecticide-treated nets (ITNs).