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Nigeria sets 2020 deadline for elimination of malaria: official

Xinhua, October 8, 2016 Adjust font size:

The Nigerian government on Friday said a national strategic plan is underway for total elimination of malaria in the country by 2020.

Malaria, a tropical disease, is responsible for tens of thousands of deaths in Nigeria every year.

Over the years, many control interventions for malaria had evolved globally and in the West African country, but the Nigerian government said a strategic plan aimed at total elimination of the disease was in full force.

The government said it has adopted a National Malaria Elimination Program (NMEP) which was designed in a way that the disease would no longer be "a source of worry" in the country.

According to Patricia Uhomoibhi, a senior official at the Ministry of Health, the strategic plan will focus mainly on the pre-elimination level by the year 2020 and reducing the malaria death to zero the same year.

Uhomoibhi said Nigeria will be able to achieve a lot to reduce the national malaria prevalence from 42 percent to 27 percent by 2017.

"That is a significant decrease and our plan is to bring it to less than five percent by the year 2020, which is the pre-elimination level," she added. Endit