Voices of the Youth

  Hauwa A. Umar - Nigeria

Hauwa Umar, female youth delegate representing Nigeria at the UN Global Youth Leadership Summit, discusses the malaria situation in her country

I currently live in Abuja where I work with Family Health International in the Global HIV/AIDS Initiative Nigeria (GHAIN) project. I am also completing my Master's degree in Development Studies specializing Environment and Regional Cooperation.

I grew up in Taraba State, North Eastern Nigeria in Donga village (near the Donga River) - a 10 hour drive from Abuja. Because of our proximity to the river, there are a lot of mosquitoes in the area and a high incidence of malaria, especially during the rainy season from April until September or October. I contracted malaria once this year and I can say that in my 28 years, I have had malaria over 50 times (1-3 times per year).

Malaria is an issue very close to my heart, because my older brother died from cerebral malaria 3 years (2003) ago at the age of 28. After university, Nigerian youth do a one year youth civil service project called the National Youth Service Corp. For his youth service, my brother was working in a village in Kebbi State, North Western Nigeria, bordering Niger Republic, where good medical care isn't easily available. He was treated for malaria but not in the correct way. One night he went to bed when he came home, fell into a coma and succumbed to the disease three days later. The major problem is that good medical care is only available in cities. In my brother's case, it was too late to take him to the next town of Jalingo which is 3 hours. To get out of Donga village to this city, we must cross the river first and there is no bridge - we cross by canoe, which takes a lot of time. Putting a grown man of 6 feet 3 inches tall into a canoe is impossible when he is in a malaria induced coma.

In my community we "live with malaria" - it is a part of life that we do not accept, but that people must deal with the best way they know how. People see it as part of their everyday life. If you say "oh, I feel tired" then someone will automatically say "oh you must have malaria." In a way, I can say that malaria is part of the culture and there are some myths surrounding the disease too. For instance, the grandmothers will tell you not sit under the sun and not to overwork yourself or else you will get malaria. Mostly people know that mosquitoes carry the disease, but the disease is so ingrained in people's lives that fever and fatigue are equated with having malaria.

When one contracts malaria, you get tired, feverish and can hardly move. Of course, it hits you much harder when you are a child, especially children under 5 years old and even up to 10 years old. For this group, malaria is watched carefully and taken very seriously because we know that it can quickly turn deadly. Children miss a lot of school because of malaria. For adults, malaria decreases productivity and causes us to miss work, but we generally try to return to work even when fatigue and fever are still present, mostly because we don’t want to stay home and be bored.

For prevention of malaria, people are becoming more aware of the efficacy of Insecticide Treatment Nets (ITNs). ITNs started getting more popular last year when radio messages and information campaigns were launched under the roll back malaria initiative. The treatment situation is also better now than in the 90s. In the 90s, a lot of counterfeit drugs (with no medical value) were being sold at drug kiosks. Dr Dora [Dr Dora Akunyili, head of Nigeria's Food and Drug regulation agency] has worked very hard to raise awareness on the issue and stop the counterfeit drugs.

These are positive trends, but much much more is needed. For instance, ACTs and ITNs are not in my home village or in many other villages - they are mostly available for city dwellers, as is information about malaria. Also, they are prohibitively expensive for many people. Meanwhile, a lot of people are taking under or over doses of chloroquine tablets and other forms of anti-malaria tablets (which they buy at unauthorized drug Pharmacies or being hawked) to treat malaria. The formula used to be 2,2,1 [two tabs the first and second days and one tab on the third day], now the sold and prescribed dose being taken is 4,4,2, because of drug resistance problems caused by the malaria.

We need full implementation of the country's ACT treatment policy, better availability of ITNs at the local level and education campaigns in multiple local languages. Education and awareness creation is very important - BBC Radio has Hausa programs with many community health messages in them including information on malaria, polio, TB, HIV/AIDS. These are extremely popular in Northern Nigeria where one sees people listening to these programs starting at 6-7 AM every morning. Community health messages need to be diffused in many more languages and more broadly. And then people need to be able to put their knowledge into practice- i.e. prevention and treatment tools need to be readily available.

In Nigeria, there is a huge focus on HIV messages and awareness, which is very positive. However, there needs to be a lot more awareness raising and information campaigns on malaria. People do not know that malaria is more deadly than HIV/AIDS. HIV activists make more noise. For instance, most of the jingles on radio or poster campaigns, etc. are on HIV. It would be very nice if we can scale-up activities on malaria. You don't see young people advocating for malaria. We would love to create more awareness about this disease and its negative impact on Nigeria's development and how it holds back progress on reaching the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

There are very immediate and concrete ways that youth can contribute to rolling back malaria. Most children in Nigeria board during High School, and for 30 plus years there has been a kind of unwritten policy that you must arrive at boarding school with a mosquito net. Usually students bring untreated ones and there are no treatment campaigns organized at school. I see an opportunity here for young people to advocate for school-wide dipping [treating nets with insecticides] and to encourage bringing a long lasting insecticidal net. These are the types of low cost and sustainable ideas that I look forward to discussing with my fellow delegates at the UN Global Youth Leadership Summit in New York.