Dr Tochukwu Egwuonwu, a General medical practitioner with Samaria Hospital, Ago-Lagos, on Tuesday said that frequent malaria was not caused by spiritual attack but infection.
She disclosed to newsmen in Lagos that malaria was caused by an organism called Plasmodium.
“Having malaria is scientific, you can explain it. It is only left for us to reduce the attack.
“First, if your child has a fever, always go to the hospital or at least, visit the laboratory and be sure it is malaria that is wrong with the child.
“This is because sometimes, it might just be something else. Ensure your children sleep inside an insecticide treated net.
“Also, try and get a net to cover your doors and windows of your house so as to control the amount of mosquitoes entering and also fumigate regularly.
“Stop the culture of hoarding things not useful in your house.
“Do not store them, example keeping a spare tire at home, when rain falls, it collects water and then the water becomes a feasting place for mosquitoes to thrive.
“Ensure your drainage function properly.
“When you do all of these, you will find out that your child will no longer have frequent malaria,’’ Egwuonwu said.
The medial doctor also said that reoccurrence of malaria was due to wrong diagnose.
Egwuonwu, who said most anti-malarial treatments were usually for three days, noted that the challenge had always been that some patients “are not very interested in taking their medication to the end.“
She said once medications were not taken completely to the end, there was the tendency that such patients would again come down with the disease in a very short time.
The doctor warned people to stop assuming that every time they came down with feve, it meant they had malaria infection.
Egwuonwu said some symptoms could just be typical of stress, saying that the treatment only required the patients to have judicious rest.
She noted that environment could also cause frequent fever due to improper disposal of waste.
The medical expert advised people not to store water in dark containers, saying that dark containers encouraged mosquitoes to breed, adding that most times, the containers were left uncovered.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) says malaria remains a major health challenge in Nigeria and other African countries as it kills a child every minute.
