Malaria treatment and farming households income poverty in Lagos State, Nigeria
Abstract
Malaria pandemic threatens economic, social and environmental sustainability throughout sub-Saharan Africa and the world at large. Malaria at the micro-level imposes two significant cost categories (morbidity and mortality costs) on households with the poor being disproportionately affected. This study empir ically explores and analyzes the malaria morbidity, treatment burden and its economic effect on farming households' income in Lagos, Nigeria. Primary data was used and a sample of 150 farm households through a multistage sampling technique was drawn from the study. The data collected was analyzed using descriptive statistics and Multinomial logit regression. Location, educational level and total days of incapacitation were found to be significant to the agricultural households' choice of malaria treatment, seventy percent the respondents do not use modern preventive measures of malaria control, poor sanitary conditions, household size of 8, and riverine nature of the environment were some of the identified factors responsible for high malaria incidence in the study area. Malaria incidence however had significant effects on the households' health and income. The findings recorded an average annual income of 700,505.20k, income loss of 21,500 due to 13 days of incapacitation, 12,650 treatment cost and 5.3 percent annual income loss per malaria episode by a household member. The disease's impact on the agricultural sector is widely felt through its deepening effect on farming households' poverty status. A couple of multipronged approaches for tackling malaria shock and its poverty flaw were therefore recommended by the study.