The Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, says plans are underway to ensure the use of Intermittent preventive treatment in infancy as a full therapeutic course of Sulphadoxine-Pyrimethamine (SP) for infants.
Osagie said this in Abuja on Thursday, at the inauguration of the Nigeria Intermittent Prevention Treatment of Malaria in Infancy IPTI research and policy uptake task team.
“In 2010, the World Health Organization (WHO), recommended the adoption of (IPTi) as one of the preventive interventions for deployment in sub-Saharan Africa, where the P. falciparum parasite is prevalent.
“However, Nigeria is yet to deploy this intervention or conduct a large scale in-country pilot since the recommendation by WHO to provide local evidence of its effectiveness and acceptability, hence the need to conduct this study,’’ he said.
According to him, IPTi is a full therapeutic course of Sulphadoxine-Pyrimethamine (SP) delivered to infants through routine immunization services, for the prevention of malaria in infants.
He said that IPTi has been shown to reduce clinical malaria, anaemia and severe malaria in the first year of life.
“Treatment is given three times during the first year of life at approximately 10 weeks, 14 weeks, and nine months of age, corresponding to the routine vaccination schedule of the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI).,’’ Osagie said.
“It is pertinent to note that by coordinating IPTi delivery with EPI, coverage can be expanded.
“The administration is safe, simple, cost-effective and thought to be accepted by health workers and communities in countries where it is being deployed.
“Of importance is that IPTi using SP has been found to have no negative effect on the protective efficacy of EPI vaccines,’’ Osagie said.
He said that IPTi was intended to complement ongoing programmatic malaria control interventions such as Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention.
“Others are vector control measures such as the use of long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs) as well as prompt diagnosis and treatment of confirmed malaria cases using Artemisinin-based Combination Therapy,’’ Minister said.
According to him, the ministry through its National Malaria Elimination Programme, has secured support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, through Malaria Consortium, to commission this research.
He said that it would gather critical evidence over the next three to four years, to guide policy decisions regarding the adoption of this intervention in Nigeria.
The minister said that it would serve as a source of support for knowledge management and engagement with key national and subnational stakeholders to increase the likelihood of uptake.
He said it would also serve as acceptability of the findings from the research that provide national policy guidance regarding clinical effectiveness of IPTi.
“I believe this intervention is promising and will contribute substantially to our efforts towards malaria elimination in Nigeria.
“I thank the Bill and Melinda Gate Foundation (BMGF) for its relentless support to improve the wellbeing of Nigerian children,’’ he said.
During overview of the IPTi, Mrs Perpetua Uhomoibhi, National Coordinator, National Malaria Eradication Program (NMEP) said that Nigeria had made some progress in the control of malaria in the last decade.
Uhomoibhi added that the progress was also as evidence by a decline from 42 Per cent in 2010 to 23 per cent in 2018.
She said despite this malaria still remained a public health challenges in the country contributing about 25 per cent to the global burden.
She said that the project was for four years saying the goal was to reduce infant morbidity and mortality.
According to her, the objectives are to engage with and involve national stakeholder from project inception to advance understating of SP-IPTi and address barriers to uptake.
She said that Osun and Ebonyi had been selected for the initial formative research based on inclusion and exclusion ranking criteria. (NAN)