A total of 2,692,209 Integrated Insecticide Treated Nets (ITNs), will be distributed to the people of Kwara State through a door-to-door approach across the sixteen local government areas of the state.
The programme is courtesy of the State Government in collaboration with the National Malaria Elimination Programme with funding support from the Global Fund Malaria Project in it’s efforts to eliminate malaria in the state.
In his remarks at an orientation programme organised for media practitioners in the state on the malaria campaign in Ilorin, the Head, Media and Communication Manager, Society for Family Health Nigeria Gbue Daniel disclosed that a total of 2,283,800 sulfadoxin-pyrimethamine with amodiaquine (SPAQ) would also be administered to eligible children aged three to 59 months as malaria prevention drugs.
According to him, “The he objective of the integrated SMC/ITN mass campaign is to ensure that for every two persons in Kwara state, there is one bed net to sleep inside, and every eligible child receives a full course of SPAQ.
“The distribution of ITN and SPAQ will be done on a door-to-door basis across all the 16 local government areas of the state.”
He announced that household registration and distribution of ITNs and SPAQ will commence simultaneously from October 19 to November 1, 2023 stressing that households who have eligible children between three to fifty nine months old must ensure that they receive SPAQ while Care givers must ensure their children complete the SPAQ dosage for Day 2 and 3.
He advised that the newly collected ITNs must be aired under a shade for 24hrs before hanging and sleeping inside.
The mass campaign is led by the Kwara State Ministry of Health and Kwara state Primary
Health Care Development Agency (KSPHCDA) with the technical support of Society for Family Health, other partners and National Malaria Elimination Programme (NMEP) providing coordination and oversight.
Also speaking, the Director of Public Health, state ministry of Health, Dr. Oluwatosin Fakayode, said that about 6,000 personnel would be deployed for the exercise, including ITN distributor, SPAQ dispenser, recorders, among others.
Fakayode who commended the state governor, Mallam AbdulRaman AbdulRazaq for according health top priority in the state, lamented that Malaria has significant consequences, particularly for vulnerable populations like children under five years old and pregnant women adding that it is also a leading cause of illness and death in Nigeria.
“Malaria is a leading cause of illness and death in Nigeria, contributing to high child mortality rates and reduced productivity. Untreated malaria can result in complications such as anaemia, organ failure, and even death.
“It is the commonest cause of absenteeism from schools, offices, farms, markets, etc resulting to lower productivity.
In addition to the overburden on health system it also exerts a huge social and economic burden on our communities and country, retarding the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 40% annually and billions of Naira is lost to malaria annually in form of treatment cost, prevention and loss of man hours”, he said.
“Mobilization and Distribution team (MDT) would visit households, register the household, give them health talks, issue them nets and administer SPAQ. Households must ensure that someone is available at home within this period to provide information to the CMDs and collect the net. The Nets are Free as well as the SPAQ,” he said.
In his presentation, a staff of the Federal ministry of Health, National Malaria Elimination Programme, Abuja, Bala Mohammed Masu, said that a significant method to prevent malaria is not to allow mosquito to bite by sleeping inside a properly hung ITN every night, describing the prevention as one assured way (and most cost effective).
Two other health experts, Shirley Wire and Chinyere Okolo spoke further on the importance of making proper use of the Integrated Treated Nets and described malaria as a killer disease.
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