Malaria Case Study

Labour productivity is the key driver of economic growth and development throughout much of world history and remains an important source of growth in developing countries today. Malaria remains a major threat to public health despite decades of control efforts. It is a devastating disease that threatens labour productivity and economic performance of endemic countries. According to World Health Organization (2010), there are still over 200 million cases of malaria and approximately one million deaths annually. Malaria constitutes 10% of African's overall disease burden, accounting for 40% of public health expenditure, 30-50% of in-patient hospital admissions and up to 50% of outpatient visits in areas with high transmission (WHO, 2006). Malaria

For instance, the costs of malaria to individuals and their families include purchase of drugs for treating malaria at home; expenses for travel to, and treatment at dispensaries and clinics; lost days of work; absence from school; expenses for preventive measures; expenses for burial in case of deaths. On the other hand, the costs to governments include maintenance, supply and staffing of health facilities; purchase of drugs and supplies; public health interventions against malaria, such as insecticide spraying or distribution of insecticide-treated bed nets; lost days of work with resulting loss of income; loss of labour productivity and lost opportunities for joint economic ventures and tourism (WHO, 2011). The above facts have serious socioeconomic implications on health outcome and welfare with indirect impact on economic growth. Malaria is responsible for an estimated average annual reduction of 13% in economic growth for those countries with the highest burden, Nigeria inclusive (Ojewumi & Ojewumi, 2012). The seemingly intractable trend of this ancient scourge has compounded the national and household poverty due to intensive loss of productive time to malaria attack and death. A cause for worry at the moment is the growing resistance of the disease to the heap first line drugs and the need for the more expensive Artemisin- Combined Therapy (ACT), (WHO,

Most of the causes of child and infant mortality are preventable or treated at very low cost. These communicable diseases constitute the greater part of the cause of child mortality and morbidity in Nigeria. However, recently, non-communicable diseases constitute increasing proportion of burden of diseases in the country. For example, injuries have become a very prominent risk factor in this regards. To buttress this, Nigeria is ranked second on the weighted scale of countries with very high road traffic accidents. (WHO-Nigeria publication on Road safety, 2004). Also malaria was rated to be the commonest disease that plagued the people. For example, 51% of the populace was found to be victims. NLSS (2007) while catarrh and cough each took about 6%. HIV/AIDS and TB also have a good proportion in Nigeria is 4.4%. Even though this relatively low in comparison with other African countries, the implication is that judging from her relative population. Nigeria has more people with HIV/AIDS than any other African nation. Also with an estimated prevalence of 546 per 100,000 people, Nigeria has the fourth highest number of TB cases in the world (WHO,