Yola, June 23, 2021 (NAN) The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Wednesday inaugurated the Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention (SMC) campaign which would target 958,000 children in Adamawa.
Speaking at the occasion in Yola, the WHO Country Representative, Dr Walter Mulombo, said the campaign was part of its mandate of ensuring the highest level of health care for everyone.
Mulombo was represented by Mr Katugwa Emmanuel, the WHO coordinator in Adamawa.
“We are today supporting the Adamawa State government, through the Ministry of Health and the Primary Health Care Development Agency (PHCDA), to reduce the burden of the killer disease, Malaria, in the vulnerable group of the under five years through the SMC campaign,” he said.
He added that WHO would continue to partner with the state government, to strengthen the health system so as to reduce the morbidity and mortality from diseases in the state.
Gov. Ahmadu Fintiri commended the effort of WHO and all partners for their continuous support and interventions in the state.
Fintiri, who was represented by his Deputy, Chief Crowther Seth, said one of the key means of addressing malaria was in the use of chemoprevention for all children aged less than five years.
“The state government, in partnership with WHO and Global Fund, has procured and delivered 3.2 million doses of Malaria chemoprevention drugs worth over a billion naira,” he said.
In her remarks, Dr Pepetua Uhomoibhi, Coordinator, National Malaria Elimination Project (NMEP), said that the project had been supporting Adamawa for a long while in promoting malaria prevention.
Uhomoibhi, who was represented by the State Coordinator (SMEP) in Adamawa, Mr Isaac Kadala, said that the project supported Adamawa in 2010, 2017 and 2020 with millions of mosquito nets and urged its regular usage.
Dr Abdullahi Isa, state Commissioner for Health, said the SMC campaign aimed to prevent 958,000 children from Malaria and would be administered house-to-house by trained personnel across the state’s 21 LGAs.
He called on parents to present their children during the exercise, which would last for the next four months, stressing that the exercise would reduce malaria-induced mortality by 75 percent amongst children.
