AMF has agreed to fund 3.7 million nets for distribution in Akwa Ibom, and expects to fund 4.4m nets for distribution in Bauchi subject to a review of in-country planning. The distributions are scheduled for early 2022. These nets aim to achieve 100% coverage across both provinces, protecting 15 million people when they sleep at night from the bites of malaria-carrying mosquitoes.
We have established a further need for 10.2 million nets to protect 18 million people to be distributed in three states in 2023 and have agreed the processes in these states and wish to formally commit as soon as possible, but need to raise the funding.
The benefits of being able to commit as soon as possible to funding nets that will be distributed in Nigeria in 2023 are significant.
It allows our co-funding partner, the President's Malaria Initiative (PMI), to bring forward to 2023, three distributions that would otherwise take place in 2024. This would mean the time between the last mass net distribution and the next in these three states would be three years and not four or five. This is very important for effective malaria control as it removes the fourth year period when net coverage levels can be very low and malaria can resurge, potentially undoing all the gains in malaria control achieved over the prior three years.
Nigeria is one of the two most malarious countries in the world with malaria responsible for the deaths of at least 150 children under 5 each day in Nigeria alone, with high incidence levels seen across the large majority of the country.
These nets have the potential to play a major part in reducing deaths and illness. This initial quantity of nets could be expected to prevent 5,000 deaths, 3 to 5 million cases of malaria and make a material impact on the economy of Nigeria. It is estimated that the improvement in GDP (Gross Domestic Product), a measure of economic performance, would be about USD 195 million.
We are about to allocate individual donations to these specific distributions and many donations, large and small, will fund these nets.
The distributions will be implemented by the National Malaria Elimination Programme of Nigeria and state partners, with whom AMF will work closely and with whom we have an agreed set of processes and a strong and open working relationship. We will report transparently on progress and performance throughout and after the distribution.
Key elements of our agreement include:
- AMF is funding 8,100,000 LLINs, with distribution in 2022
- This is a co-funding partnership with non-net costs (shipping, pre-distribution, distribution) funded by the US’s President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI)
- To support accurate data gathering, re-checks of net need numbers will take place by re-visiting a material number of households chosen at random.
- Household-level data will be collected using electronic-devices and then transferred into AMF’s Data Entry System (DES) for analysis and verification. This, and the above elements combined, are the basis for a highly accountable distribution.
- Post-distribution monitoring of net use and condition (PDMs) will take place every nine months for two and a half years in all districts. AMF will fund this.
Further information is available via the dedicated province pages below.
Akwa Ibom, Bauchi