|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Having observed little or no interventions from the three levels of government that are operational in Nigeria, especially the Federal Government, a coalition of health service providers have directed Federal Government not to leave malaria control and prevention to foreign aid donors alone.
The coalition of health service providers who converged on Abeokuta at a media orientation on long lasting insecticidal nets campaign in Ogun state on Monday, declared it is not enough for government to be a receiver of health services and aids from foreign aid donors but should also have reasonable investments in malaria prevention and control as well as other health interventions.
Speaking at the event, John Ocholi, the deputy chief of party, Society for Family Health said that malaria and other health challenges that affect Nigerian populace would have been effectively fought and controlled if there have been appreciable interventions from government rather than receiving health services and aids from foreign donors.
He added,”Don’t leave malaria prevention and control aid donors alone, malaria parasites and vectors would have been well controlled if government invested in it, if government involved in what the aid donors such as WHO, World Bank and other partners do.”
Earlier, Zainab Baba-Mai Ali, manager of Malaria Elimination Programme which is undertaken in partnership with the Ogun State of Health, said a total of 3,363,654 free bed nets would be distributed to people of Ogun State with the use of Cash and Asset Transfer (CAT) strategy using android devices through a mass distribution campaign.
This she said,was done “in our efforts to eliminate malaria in Ogun State with the support from Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM) through the Catholic Relief Services (CRS). The objective of the distribution is to ensure that for every two persons in Ogun state, there is one bed net to sleep inside.
“The distribution will be done in 1,255 distribution points across all the 20 LGAs of the State from 1st to 5th May, 2018. Before the distribution, there will be registration of Households from 14th to 22nd April, 2018, where household mobilizers will move from house to house to register and issue net cards. Households must ensure that they collect net cards during this registration.”
RAZAQ AYINLA, Abeokuta
