On that fateful day, the 30th of September, 2020, James Okafor’s family finished having dinner when his wife, Jessica, who ate just little due to lack of appetite, started running a fever. James rushed her to the nearest hospital, just a 20-minute drive from his house. The doctor on duty prescribed a series of tests, including COVID-19.
James was greatly worried as he awaited the test result, praying it wouldn’t be the dreaded coronavirus. After a while, the doctor entered the room where his wife was with the test results. With mixed feelings, James listened to the test results and heaved a sigh of relief when he was told his wife was suffering from a bout of malaria.
The medical personnel placed Jessica under close watch to stabilize her temperature and condition medically. Unfortunately, at about 1:47 am, Jessica breathed her last breath in James’ hand.
Jessica, a resident of Abuja, is just one of the 199,689 Nigerians who died of malaria in 2020. Though James was relieved at the news that his wife was not infected with coronavirus, little did he know that malaria is an equally deadly killer.
For every coronavirus death in Nigeria in 2020, 155 people died of malaria. Africa and Nigeria may not be dying in droves from coronavirus predicted by many, but almost 200,000 lives lost to malaria means Nigerians are dying in droves from malaria.
Malaria killed 627,000 persons in 2020, more than the 558,000 that died of malaria in 2019. There were 241 million cases worldwide in 2020 and 627,000 died from the disease in 2020. Although these numbers are less than the World Health Organization’s predictions, they are still alarming and requiring quick actions by all concerned.
Nigeria accounted for 26.7% of the total malaria cases and 31.8% of the total deaths globally. The number of both cases and deaths increased in 2020 over 2019. Number of cases increased from 60.37 million in 2019 to 64.46 million in 2020, representing a 6.8% increase. The number of deaths increased from 187,437 to 199,689 within the same period, a 6.5% increase.
WHO said in its 2021 malaria report that the increase in cases globally, global cases by 6.17% and deaths 12.37%, is linked to disruptions in the provision of malaria prevention, diagnosis and treatment during the pandemic.
Countries channelled resources towards fighting the global pandemic and there was a general decline in attention given to malaria in 2020. For instance, Nigeria as at April 2021 had spent N475 billion on the fight against coronavirus. This figure is higher than the N73.2 billion spent on malaria all through 2020.
The volume of commodities distributed in 2020 and the coverage of the population dropped.
The number of Long Lasting Insecticide-treated Nets (LLINs) distributed dropped from 32.36 million in 2019 to 25.51 million in 2020. By this drop, the percentage of the population with access to LLINs dropped from 48.3% in 2019 to 41.9% in 2020.
Likewise the number of Rapid Diagonistic Tests (RDTs) distributed dropped from 26.31 million in 2019 to 15.59 million in 2020. Artemisinin-based Combination Therapy (ACT) courses delivered and the number of malaria cases treated with ACT also declined in 2020. The ACT courses distributed declined from 38.24 million in 2019 to 17.89 million in 2020. Malaria cases treated by ACT declined from 21.25 million in 2019 to 19.9 million in 2020.
These backward slide in the fight against malaria with the emergence of coronavirus derailed the achievement of the Global Technical Strategy for malaria (GTS) 2020 milestones for morbidity and mortality. The World Health Organization (WHO) report states that 68% of the countries failed to attain a reduction of indigenous cases by 40% by 2020.
Some of these challenges are occasioned not only by attention and resources given to Covid but also by the utter disruption in how the world functioned caused by the pandemic.
Global supply chain ground to a halt during the lock downs so all malaria related commodities produced outside of the region of need could not be produced or distributed. Even local industries were impacted by the many lock downs. Raw materials for production that had any imported components could not continue.
Asides from production and distribution of commodities, malaria is often treated as non-life threatening and management and care for affected persons is mostly done at home. The pandemic further made it difficult for people to visit hospitals, on one hand because advise from medical experts was “stay at home if you’re not really sick” on the other hand, self medication, already prevalent in developing countries and some developed countries became an even more desirable option. One of the major reasons cited was fear of contracting the virus from healthcare facilities.
The WHO report concluded that the GTS and SDG 2025 and 2030 targets for malaria morbidity and mortality will also not be met unless urgent actions are taken to reverse this trend.