The Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chuckwu, on Thursday in Addis Ababa said Nigeria and four other African countries accounted for 47 per cent of the global malaria cases.
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The minister, who stated this at an AU Commission's breakfast to celebrate the 2013 World Malaria Day in Addis Ababa, said the countries are Nigeria, Congo DR, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Kenya.
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He said that 47 per cent of the cases amounted to 116 million of the global burden of the Malaria scourge and called for more effort to rid the continent of the disease.
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He said that recent statistics showed that there were about 247 million World cases per year and that Africa accounted for 86 per cent or 212 million cases.
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"Various strategies are being implemented in the control, but we need to move on to elimination and ultimately eradication, and for Africa to eliminate Malaria, our approach must be multi-pronged and integrated,'' he said.
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According to him, the ECOWAS region is encouraging member countries to ensure vector control through Integrated Vector Management in addition to implementing large scale larviciding.
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"A ground breaking ceremony for a Larvicidal Factory was done in Nigeria a couple of weeks ago in the presence of the President and Vice President of the ECOWAS commission and the Deputy Prime Minister of Venezuela.
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" The region is also focusing on vector resistance and drug surveillance, but Africa must employ Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) with medical additive (DDT) and also scale up the use of Rapid Diagnostic Test kits (RDTs)."
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He said that Nigeria has commenced pre-planning process for the review of the National Malaria Strategic Plan.