|
HEALTH INTERACTIVE WITH
DR AMINU MAGASHI Between Malaria and HIV/AIDS Projects in Nigeria Nigerians are still celebrating this year’s Africa Malaria Day, those following the events marking the day would be aware of a press conference by the honorable minister of health, Professor Eyitayo Lambo, rallies in support of malaria treatment and provision of treated mosquito nests, children parliamentary sessions on passage of a bill on provision of mosquito nets to students in boarding secondary schools. Also to ear marked the day is an essay competition among secondary students on ‘ what to do if I become the minister of health also NET Mark a pet project of USAID is busy putting advertisements in many national dailies congratulating Mr. President, minister of health and other Roll Back Malaria partners on the occasion of Africa Malaria Day. I am really amazed by the level of the celebration and the commitment of the stakeholders on that, at least we know that one only celebrates success not failure, I failed to see the rationale behind the celebration and the huge amount of money and resources spent throughout the week, as if the prevalence of the disease and the death attributed to the same is reducing. As some one wrote to me based on my discourse last week on this column ‘ Should We Mark Africa Malaria Day, he mentioned that apart from the mosquito and plasmodium parasite which are the real celebrants of the day, he believes beneficiaries of RBM projects also ought to celebrate and he went further to list them , national NGOs and government workers who are busy spending the meager resources of malaria in a vicious cycle of workshops, seminars and press conferences while abandoning the vulnerable groups ( women and children ) without drugs and genuine preventive mechanism of investing on environmental sanitation. To be honest to the RBM partners there is nothing to celebrate; instead we ought to mourn the death of so many children attributed to malaria and lament over the decay of infrastructures in our pediatric units across the country. By staging children parliamentary session of a bill passage on mosquito net and rally on the same, we have already psyche our children and teleguided them on what to write on the essay of if I become a health minister. It is obvious that our selective intervention strategy of Operation Provide Mosquito Nets will continue to remain our Achilles hill and yard stick for total failure in halving the burden of malaria by 2010. On another angle, part of country’s dilemma and imbroglio on prevention and control of malaria is the fact that HIV/AIDS projects have depleted almost all the resources that is supposed to be financing malaria projects, take for example, the Global Fund On HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis And Malaria, an international financing institution aimed at generating and providing resources for prevention against AIDS, TB and malaria in support of the Millennium Development Goals Of United Nations. The fund which was established in 2002 at the initiative of United Nation Secretary General, Mr. Kofi Annan who called for the creation of such a fund at Abuja, Nigeria summit of African heads of states on AIDS, TB and other infectious diseases in April, 2001. With funding on AIDS and related matters coming into the country like a rain fall or oil wind fall, one would have expected the Nigerian Country Coordination Mechanism ( CCM ) on Global Fund to direct and channel their talents to develop proposal towards mitigating the impact of malaria, but Alas, we have a country devoid of visionary and patriotic leaders who are wasting their valuable time in chasing shadows, the CCM without adequate consultation with stakeholders across the country went ahead to write the maiden proposal on Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, a disease that has now become a national cake and another dividend of democracy. The said proposal was approved and the country is granted US $ 70 million to finance three interventions, the agreement was signed in July, 2003 by the secretary to the government of federation , Mr Uffot Ekaete on behalf of the FG and former head of state, General Yakubu Gowon on behalf of Gowon Center For National Unity And International Cooperation. The federal government probably under National Action Committee On AIDS ( NACA ) will implement the expansion on anti retroviral drugs and prevention of mother to child HIV transmission, while the Gowon center which has already commences its own project on strengthening the capacity of NGOs nation wide to mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS . The most worry some part of it , is that the center has engage Civil Society Group Against HIV/AIDS in Nigeria as a implementing partner, a consultative group which could not organized a proffer election and coordinate self and typical of Nigerian style instead of CISGHAN to invest wisely, it is busy buying flashy cars and having state of the art secretariat at Abuja and other routine running of the network. With this kind of attitude, and the aggressive campaign on CONDOM marketing, promotion and distribution by so many local and international NGOs, the same condom which studies by United Nation have faulted to have a 10 % failure rate and also the syndrome of spending money meant for vulnerable groups on workshops which in most cases aimed only at reviewing statistics and figures and participants enjoying daily subsistence allowances and per diem and at the end of such , to be tasked again to organize another workshops as a post mortem of the former one and vis-à-vis abandoning people living and infected and /or affected by HIV in despair, agony and frustration.. How will I be surprise as to why Nigerian’s HIV prevalence is not declining but rather rising every two years when a survey is conducted. In conclusion, I will like to appeal to malaria partners and government in all tiers to invest more on malaria through provision of cheaper generic drugs, provision of emergency facilities at pediatric and maternity units and above all investing in environmental sanitation and also hand in hand I call the attention of CCM on global fund and other international donor agencies to write, and develop proposal for funding towards implementing projects on malaria control and prevention and to say boldly and genuinely enough of HIV/AIDS depleting malaria projects of their meager resources. |