Malaria ravages families as cost of prevention, treatment soars

…Malaria vaccination yet to begin

Nigerians are increasingly finding it difficult to prevent or treat malaria due to the rising cost of drugs.

Findings show that the cost of prevention and treatment has risen by 50 to 600 percent over the past year, further straining families already grappling with economic hardship.

At least 97 percent of Nigeria’s population are at risk of malaria, according to the National Malaria Strategic Plan 2021-2025. However, the escalating cost continues to keep essential medications out of reach leaving vulnerable groups—particularly children and pregnant women—who are at even greater risk.

The situation is exacerbated by rising inflation, currency devaluation, and insufficient healthcare funding, according to health experts. Consequently, families now face prohibitive costs for bed nets, insecticides, and anti-malarial drugs.

Price changes

A market survey confirmed significant price increases in common anti-malarial drugs over the past year. For instance, Camosunate for adults, which cost between N1, 500–N2,100 in November 2023, now sells for N3,500, representing a 67 percent and 133 percent jump over the period.

Artequick tablets, previously ₦2,000, now sells between ₦3,000 and ₦13,000, representing 50 percent to 550 percent increase.

P-alaxin tablets, once N1,300–N3,200, now costs N4,000.

Amatem Forte soft gel, previously sold for N2,500–N3,000, now ranges between N4,000 and N7,500, indicating 60 percent to 150 percent increase.

Also, the price of Lonart DS has more than doubled to N8000, from N2,500–N3,600. Coartem, which formerly sold for N3,500, has now more than doubled to N8,500.

Also, the price of Paludrine tablets has more than quadrupled to N11,000 from N2,500. Similarly, the price of E-mal injections has jumped from ₦4,000 to ₦7,700, indicating 93 percent increase over the period.

Artequin adult tablets, which sold for N10,000–N20,000 last year, now ranges between ₦12,000 and ₦37,000. The price of Malanil has also nearly doubled from N50, 000 to N95,000.

The price of insecticides have also risen by 50 percent to 100 percent over the period, with some of them selling for N2000 in November 2023 now going for N4,000 to N5,000.

Read also: USAID commits $2.3m to malaria prevention in Nigeria

Nigerians’ experience

Narrating her experience with BusinessDay, Faustina Onyenwe, a petty trader and mother of two in Bwari area of Abuja, said she and her one-year-old daughter fell ill with malaria in August 2024. She then had to borrow money to pay for the treatment owing to high costs.

“The prices are never the same. I went to the local chemist to buy drugs with N5,000 for me and my baby. I thought I would even return with some balance, but to my surprise, it was not enough for the drugs they prescribed for me. I had to forgo one of the drugs because I could not afford all of them,” she noted.

Femi Olarewaju, a Lagos-based civil servant, said he had to spend over N80,000 to treat malaria in a hospital in September 2024, as against less than N30,000 in 2023.

“Even at that, the drugs appeared to be having little impact on the disease,” he noted.

Economic Burden

In addition to the personal financial burden, malaria has a significant economic impact. The federal government recently revealed that malaria accounts for an annual loss of over $1.1 billion to Nigeria’s gross domestic product (GDP), excluding out-of-pocket expenses for self-medication and preventive measures borne by households.

Malaria has remained a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in Nigeria, which bears the highest-burden globally. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Nigeria recorded an estimated 68 million cases and nearly 200,000 malaria-related deaths in 2022.

Public health experts have expressed concern that the rising cost of anti-malarial drugs could worsen Nigeria’s malaria burden. Currently accounting for 27 percent of global malaria cases, Nigeria remains the epicentre of the disease, according to the World Malaria Report 2023.

Read also: Nigeria targets 13% reduction in malaria deaths among children as vaccination begins November

Situation may worsen

Experts attribute the soaring cost of drugs to foreign exchange crisis, and the exit of some pharmaceutical giants from the market. These challenges come amidst rising inflation, which has significantly reduced the purchasing power of Nigerians.

Adaobi Onyechi, a public health expert, decried the high out-of-pocket expenditures for healthcare, noting that they place an additional strain on household incomes, particularly among the indigent population. She lamented that Nigeria remains the epicentre of malaria, with citizens bearing the brunt of the disease despite decades of intervention.

Without urgent interventions, Onyechi warned the situation is likely to worsen. She highlighted three critical areas of intervention including increasing investment in preventive care, expanding health insurance coverage to include more Nigerians, and prioritising malaria vaccination.

Nigeria yet to begin vaccination

Onyechi expressed concerns that Nigeria is yet to begin vaccination despite receiving the R21/Matrix-M malaria vaccine about two months ago.

In October, Nigeria received 864,200 doses of the vaccine from Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. The Federal Government has projected that vaccination will reduce all-cause mortality among children under five by 13 percent.

However, vaccination is yet to commence, while at least nine other African countries with lesser burden, including Uganda, Burundi, Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, Benin, Cameroon, and Liberia, have already rolled out vaccination campaigns targeting millions of children.

The National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) initially scheduled malaria vaccination to begin in November as part of a phased introduction strategy recommended by the WHO. The agency later fixed Monday, November 25, 2024, as the start date but has postponed it.

When BusinessDay inquired about the delay on Wednesday, an official stated that vaccination would now begin in December but did not provide reasons for the postponement.