The Prince Ned Nwoko Foundation has started funding a group of scientists and researchers to develop anti-malaria vaccine to aid in the eradication of malaria in Africa.
Mr. Ned Nwoko, the Chairman of the Foundation, noted on Monday in Abuja that creating a vaccine with the efficacy of boosting immunity against malaria is one of the strategies to mitigate the scourge.
He said the group of scientists and advisers had been put together already with a specific instruction to discover a vaccine for malaria.
“There are vaccines for many other ailments, from chickenpox to smallpox, polio, name them; so why not malaria?
“Everyone seems to have accepted that malaria is part of us, but it doesn’t have to be, so we need to get vaccine research going, which we are doing now,’’ he said.
Nwoko said just like any project that has to succeed needs a long and short term strategy, the Eradicating Malaria in Africa Project is not an exception.
He said fumigating the African Continent one country at a time and stepping up on the environmental sanitation and hygiene are the project’s short term strategies.
“We are not going to fumigate Africa at once, we are going to fumigate country by country, once the country keys into it, we take it up from there and do what has to be done.
“Fumigation is just one aspect of it, don’t forget that sanitation is so important, the cleaning up of the environment, we must clean up our environment, stagnant waters, dirt everywhere, the sewage systems, gutters, refuse dumps.
“We have come of age in Nigeria where our environment should be clean anyway, why must we continue living in dirty environments, why must we continue living in slums,’’ he said.
MM/GIK/APA