One out of five deaths from malaria globally occurs in Nigeria, the Media and communications specialist of the Global Fund project of the Society for Family Health (SFH), Daniel Gbue, has disclosed.
Quoting different world statistics on malaria prevalence in Nigeria, Gbue also said the disease kills nine persons every hour in Nigeria.
He spoke in Abeokuta, Ogun State, at a one-day media orientation for practising journalists across the state on the ITN universal coverage campaign.
Gbue said: “It (malaria) is the commonest cause of absenteeism from schools, offices, farms, markets, etc resulting to lower productivity.
“In addition to the overburden on health system it also exerts a huge social and economic burden on our communities and country, retarding the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 40% annually and billions of Naira is lost to malaria annually in form of treatment cost, prevention and loss of man hours.”
