The Malaria Consortium, an international non-profit organisation, has said that a national roll out of the perennial malaria chemoprevention (PMC) intervention could reduce severe malaria cases among Nigerian children by as much as 43 percent.
Senior Project Manager of Malaria Consortium, Dr Chinazo Ujuju, said this in Abuja during the National Perennial Malaria Chemoprevention (PMC) and Policy Uptake Task Team (NPRPUT) dissemination meeting organised by the consortium.
Nigeria currently bears the highest malaria burden in the world, with children under five most at risk of severe illness and death.
Perennial malaria chemoprevention (PMC) involves the administration of a full course of anti-malaria drugs to children of defined ages who are vulnerable at specified times regardless of whether they have malaria or not. Ujuju said the PMC pilot programme carried out in Osun State has shown highly promising results that demonstrate the intervention’s effectiveness and feasibility for nationwide adoption.
‘PMC is an intervention designed to protect children by giving them a complete dose of anti-malaria medicine during routine immunisation. Our results are really very interesting. They show that PMC is effective, operationally feasible, and widely accepted by caregivers and health workers. Most importantly, it can lead to up to 43 percent reduction in severe malaria cases,’ Dr. Ujuju said.
Dr Ujuju explained that the PMC initiative is being introduced as an additional intervention to existing measures such as Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention (SMC), insecticide-treated bed nets, and Intermittent Preventive Treatment in Pregnancy (IPTP).
According to her, the project was carefully designed to generate evidence for policymakers before full-scale adoption.
The Consortium expressed optimism that if scaled up, PMC would significantly complement Nigeria’s malaria control strategies and help reduce the overall disease burden.
Meanwhile, the Federal Government has expressed readiness to adopt the perennial malaria chemoprevention (PMC) as a major intervention strategy to tackle malaria among children of two years and below, following encouraging results from a recent pilot study carried out in Osun State.
National Coordinator of the National Malaria Elimination Programme (NMEP), Dr Nnenna Ogbulafor, who spoke at the event, said preliminary findings from the study show that the intervention has the potential to significantly reduce malaria infection and severity among children in areas with continuous transmission.
‘From what we have seen in the pilot studies, children who adhered to the guidelines for PMC recorded a significant drop in severe malaria cases. With this evidence, we are confident that Nigeria will be adopting this intervention, particularly for children in the southern states where malaria transmission is all year round,’ she said.
Prof. Olubenga Makuolu, Strategic Adviser to the Minister of Health on Malaria Elimination, described PMC as a crucial addition to Nigeria’s malaria control strategy.
He stressed that malaria elimination requires multiple approaches, combining vector control, treatment, and drug-based prevention.
‘Malaria is everybody’s business. ‘If individuals adopt preventive measures such as using bed nets, keeping the environment clean, and embracing chemoprevention, it will help break the transmission cycle. A mosquito that bites someone without malaria has nothing to transmit to another person,’ he said.