In an effort to eliminate malaria among residents of Ogun State, the Society for Family Health (SFH) in collaboration with the State Government has said it will distribute 3.1m mosquito net across the state’s twenty local government areas.
According to the WHO 2022 report on malaria, Nigeria had an estimate of 68 million malaria, leading to 194,000 deaths due to the disease in 2021.
Speaking on Monday, during a media parley on ITNs universal coverage campaign held in Abeokuta, John Ocholi, the Project Director, global fund project for the Society for Family Health’s, the menance has prompted the 2024 campaign for Insecticide-Treated Nets (ITNs), targeting residents of rural areas where malaria risk is at the highest.
He bemoaned that the state has the lowest proportion of net utilization globally and emphasized the necessity for residents to use the net.
Ocholi said that the goal of the campaign is to ensure healthy living of people rather than spending their resources on treating the disease.
Ocholi said “First, we need to work of preventing the mosquitoes bitting us which is what the government Ogun state is doing by partnering with the free distribution of net in the state. The attention now is when you give people net and they sleep inside every night they reduce the bite and the contact with the vector”.
He added ” Ogun state have one of the least percentage of net use utilization in the world , its somewhere around 30% and net ownership is about 60-70%, so we want to also encourage people to use the net. We are begging people once you get this net, air it for 24hrs after that put it over the sleeping space and sleep inside it every night. If we save money from buying drugs we can use it in other things like education, transportation, feeding and others. And that’s why we say health is wealth it helps you to do other things”.
Responding the Malaria program manager for Ogun state, Mrs Olamide Adeyinka, noted that the state has embarked on an interpersonal sensitization on the alley citizens fear on the usage of mosquito net.
She said ” We are having alot of community mobilization we have CSOs ( Civil society Organisations ) who are working in the community to make people see reasons why they need to use the net correctly. In 10 local governments, we are doing what we call inter personal communication, where people move from house to house talking to them one on one so as to ascertain the reasons for not using it and advice them on the advantage of using it.
Adeyinka emphasized the state’s readiness, stating that about 14,000 personnel will engage in the campaign.
” The state is full ready in distrubution over 3 million nets to all the LGAs within the state. This net are already in the state and would be moved to identified distribution points for beneficiaries.
Over 14,000 personnels would be involved and engaged across the state in the campaign and alot of advocacy visit have been paid to all stakeholders, traditional religious leaders, community leaders, opinions makers so all this have been put in place to ensure we have a successful campaign.
She stated that the household mobilization/registration would run from the 31stOctober to 6th November, while the net distribution will commence from 19th to 23rd of November.
” There would be household mobilization which starts on the 31 of October its for 7days and during this period we have campaign personneld moving from house to house giving out net card, indicating the number of net an household is expected to reedem and it covers weekend so everyone can benefit”.
Similarly, Omo-Eboh Mamudu, National Malaria Elimination Programme, Federal Ministry of Health, assured that the distrubution would be in accordance with the global standards of ITN coverage.
He explained that children under five and pregnant women from deprioritized communities who are more susceptible to malaria can go to health facilities near them to get nets during antenatal care and immunization programs.
While emphasizing the need to promote an eco-friendly environment and greener energy, Dr. Godwin Aidenagbon represented by Temitope Akintan, campaign manager SFH, lamented that the majority of residents turn to burning and illegal disposal of old or damaged nets.
He revealed that the distribution points in the state’s Odeda, Ado-Odo/Ota, Ifo, Ewekoro, Sagamu, and Obafemi Owode local government areas have been designated to recover damaged nets.
