New innovation to reduce malaria

Nigeria is believed to have witnessed a change from clinical or presumptive to evidence-based diagnosis in malaria incidents lately. This is going by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) recommendation that all fever cases in all populations, especially, those at risk be confirmed by demonstration of malaria parasite in peripheral blood before treatment. The National Coordinator, National Malaria Control Programme, Dr, Jide Coker, revealed this.

Dr. Coker spoke at a lecture he delivered at the product launch of Standard Diagnostic Bioline Malaria Rapid Diagnostic Test Kit (RDT) at the Sheraton Hotel, Lagos. Speaking at the event, the Co-ordinator, who was represented by Dr. Durojaiye David, said plans as part of government’s effort in speeding up malaria intervention in Nigeria, RDTs shall be deployed in both public and private sectors to enhance rapid and more accurate diagnosis.

On the launch of the standard Diagnostic Bioline rapid Diagnostic Test Kit into the healthcare industry he said “is designated to signal a match towards ensuring quality treatment of Malaria and rapid reduction of morbidity and mortality in Nigeria. It is worrisome that despite the fact that Malaria is treatable, curable and preventable, it still assumes the deadly dimension in pregnancy, causing anemia and increasing the rate of abortion, menorrhea, premature delivery and death”.

“The change in treatment policy and deployment of more expensive anti-Malaria medicines involving ACTs has raised interest in parasitological confirmation of Malaria at levels of healthcare system. The diagnosis of malaria in Nigeria has changed from clinical or presumptive to evidence-based diagnosis and the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that all fever cases in all population, especially, those at risk be confirmed by demonstration of Malaria parasite in peripheral blood before treatment with ACTs.

He however, noted that exemptions exits with children who are under five years old and pregnant women in Malaria endemic areas like Nigeria”.
He said. “The confirmation is done by use of microscope which we know as Gold Standard or Rapid Diagnostic Test. The rapid diagnostic tests are based on the detection of circulating parasite antigen in the blood. It is expected that as we scale up for impact, massive deployment of RTDs will provide accurate parasite-based diagnosis for all levels of health service delivery system especially at the primary healthcare level where microscope or microscopy is not available due to inadequate skilled personnel or electricity.

“There are several benefits which can be achieved by Rapid diagnosis self deployment. And some of these include reducing ACT wastage because most fevers are not due to malaria, it will help to ascertain true malaria incidents and promote rational use of anti-malaria medicines. It will also help to ensure more better target treatment for none malaria fevers, reduce the rate of development of resistance of ACTs and finally, redeem credibility of health workers and health service.

As part of our effort in speeding up malaria intervention in Nigeria, RDTs shall be deployed in both public and private sectors. I will pause here to commend the activity of Standard Diagnostic Bioline and Codix Pharma for their effort to support capacity building for systems safety in the country.
In his goodwill massage, the Director-General, National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) Dr, Paul Orhii, remarked that any innovation that helps to reduce malaria is a laudable one. He gave the assurance that SD Bioline duly registered by NAFDAC so we assure you of its quality and safety to be used in Nigeria”.

Managing Director of Codix Pharma Limited, Mr. Sammy Ogunjimi, whose company has the sole franchise for the marketing and distribution of SD Bioline in the country, called for more efforts at providing a cleaner environment.
“Malaria can be eradicated. The fact that people are dying of malaria now and almost everyone has one episode of malaria at least in a year, it can be wiped off. But, we must be determined-everybody-we must really be determined to want to make a change, to really make it happen.

“I’ve traveled to different states, I’ve seen with my own eyes the changes that have taken place even in Lagos state. We need to encourage them. Though there are lots of gutters that are still probably not clean, but there are also lots of streets now have refuse collectors and they’re clean. So, there are changes that are taking place. We still have a long way to go. But a lot still needs to be done in ensuring clean and healthy environment. But what have been done here now by the Fashola-led government, honestly, I’ve never seen a thing like that the past 20 years in Lagos. State.
“He also spoke on the need for rapid and accurate diagnosis before treatment.

Actually, this is the first one. There are different RTDs. But what makes this one different is this, in the choice of RDT, what makes this one different is the quality, but not just quality that the company is saying ‘my product is good, but an independent assessment of the quality. So what you have with this one is, there are different WHO assessments. What companies do is, send their products and they would assess and them and produce a sort of report. When this was done, SD Bioline RDT was in the top five of the ones that were of the best.

‘You choose the best in term of, when you use the kit to test for malaria, can the thing really detect malaria even if its small? Sometimes, if you have more malaria in your system, and you try to detect, it will be a lot easier for one to detect. But, when you have small amount of malaria in your system, can the malaria test kit still detect it? And this one does.

“As a matter of fact, there’s a WHO lab in Nigeria where we do local evaluation. When this one came and they did the test, it was the best one. And that’s why they even used as control. So, only is RDT important. In the patient picture that I gave, when anyone thinks he has malaria, the first thing anybody does is run to the shop and buy anti-malarial that has to change. It has to change because there’s no drug that does not have side effect. If you’re taking a drug, make sure you’re taking a drug for the real intention” he said.