The Federal Government says it is intensifying efforts to eliminate malaria while strengthening domestic healthcare financing to reduce Nigeria’s dependence on external donors. The Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Professor Muhammad Ali Pate, disclosed this while receiving the Board of Trustees of the Malaria Consortium at the ministry in Abuja.

The delegation visited to recognise Nigeria’s progress in reducing malaria parasite prevalence among children aged between six and 59 months.

According to figures presented during the meeting, prevalence among children in the age group fell from 42 per cent in 2010 to 15 per cent in 2025. Pate said the government would build on the progress through improved diagnosis, access to quality and affordable malaria medicines and data-driven strategies at the subnational level.

Other measures include seasonal malaria chemoprevention and additional interventions designed to reduce the disease burden. The minister also acknowledged the contribution of the Malaria Consortium and other partners to Nigeria’s malaria-control efforts.

However, the government says strengthening domestic healthcare financing is necessary to make progress sustainable and reduce dependence on external donor funding. Nigeria’s malaria strategy is therefore increasingly focused on combining prevention, diagnosis, treatment, surveillance and sustainable financing.

The Biggest Change

Perhaps the most important element of the government’s latest announcement is the emphasis on domestic financing. For years, Nigeria’s malaria response has benefited from international development assistance. External organisations have supported programmes involving prevention, diagnosis, treatment and other interventions.

But dependence on external financing creates a vulnerability. If donor priorities change, funding declines or international programmes are disrupted, countries that have not developed sustainable domestic financing mechanisms can struggle to maintain progress.

The Federal Government now says it wants to reduce that dependence. That represents an important evolution from the public-health debates of the early 1900s that centred heavily on whether the administration was providing adequate health infrastructure and personnel.

Today, the debate around malaria increasingly concerns whether Nigeria itself can sustain the financing required to maintain and expand the gains already achieved. The government intends to use improved diagnostics, quality and affordable medicines, data-driven subnational strategies, seasonal malaria chemoprevention, insecticide-treated bed nets and vaccines where available.

Modern surveillance can also provide health authorities with information that was impossible to obtain at the same speed or scale ten decades ago.