MALARIA VACCINE: A DOSE OF HOPE FOR NIGERIA

Do you know why the Europeans have lackadaisical attitude when they were then to come to Africa for colonialism? It is because of those deadly African mosquitoes! Malaria is not good for body. In a bid to further the campaign against its infection, it is deem fit to pen this down.

Going by the definition of Merriam-Webster Dictionary, “malaria” is a human disease that is caused by sporozoan parasites (genus Plasmodium) in the red blood cells, is transmitted by the bite of anopheline mosquitoes, and is characterized by periodic attacks of chills and fever. Biologically, it is an established fact that the main vector of the disease which is mosquito which itself, is a piercing and sucking insect. This means that once it sucks your body, it pierces into your blood then take it to mix with the blood of the body of another of its victim. That is why it spreads easily.

A report from the World Health Organization has it that there were about “229 million cases of malaria in 2019.” After a thorough estimation by the health specialists, a huge number of malaria were recorded to be 409, 000 in the same year. The most vulnerable victims of this awful killer is the under-age children of about five or more years old, about 57 percent of them lost their lives in the African region entirely.
Malaria is not taking it easy with Nigeria and we lose many weekly. It should be recalled that Kingsley C. Amibor, the chairperson of National Association of Hospital and Administrative Pharmacists of Nigeria (AHAPN), said that “over 300, 000 death cases” in his welcome address on the 2021 World Malaria Day. It is on this background that the attention of the Nigerian government need to be drawn that vaccine for the prevention of malaria is highly inevitable!
Imagine a country where a small disease has turned itself to our ruler? Vaccine against malaria is indeed a dose of hope for Nigerians! We need to stay healthy to partake in any human endeavour.

About The Writer
Mohammed Oluwatimileyin Taoheed is a Nigerian bilingual writer from Offa, Kwara State and currently a law student of Usman Dan Fodio University Sokoto State. He is the National Correspondent, Track News Nigeria.