UK donates £1bn to curb malaria and other diseases in Nigeria

The United Kingdom (UK), an Island country in Britain, has announced the donation of £1 billion to the global fund to curb malaria and other diseases in Nigeria from 2024 to 2026, according to a statement on Thursday.

Ebere Anyachukwu, health adviser at the British High Commission announced the donation in an interview with the press at Abuja, to commemorate World Malaria Day.

“The donation is in addition to the funds from other donors to tackle malaria and other diseases in Nigeria. It would be used for procurement of insecticide, treated bed nets, diagnostics testing for malaria, and chemoprevention,” he said.

He added that there are some states in Nigeria where malaria is seasonal and where chemoprevention is used to prevent children from coming down with malaria.

“In those states, malaria spreads in a few months within a year, and during that period, there is a high level of malaria transmission in children, resulting in lots of deaths,” he said.

Ayanchukwu said children in such states are usually given malaria drugs, whether or not they have the infection.

“These are part of measures by the global fund that have significantly reduced the level of illnesses and deaths in children,” he said.

In 2008, the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimated that Nigeria had about 221, 000 malaria-related deaths. But by 2022, the figure was about 189 deaths.

“There is a significant reduction due to the intervention of the global fund, even when there was an increase in the nation’s population and a lot of lives have been saved over the years because people now have access to health care facilities funded by these interventions,” the statement said.

According to Ayanchukwu, the UK is a big contributor to the global fund, currently supporting about 13 states in Nigeria which are Adamawa, Delta, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kwara, Niger, Ogun, Osun, Yobe and Taraba.

“With the global funding support, there has been a significant reduction of malaria-related deaths in children in Nigeria,” he added.