Malaria

Kano: Over 3.1m children to receive supplements against malaria – commissioner

By Uzair Adam Imam 

Over 3.1 million children would receive supplements against malaria, while 2.8 million children would be dewormed, the Kano state commissioner for Health, Dr Aminu Ibrahim Tsanyawa, said.

The Commissioner disclosed that there would be childhood immunization for about 68,135 children, adding that antenatal services would also be provided.

Tsanyawa stated this during a media briefing ahead of the exercise, which begins on Tuesday, July 5, 2022.

He noted that the Kano State Government had identified about 12 million children to receive the seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention for July to October 2022 in the 44 government areas of the state.

The Daily Reality learned that the previous exercise conducted in January 2022 recorded huge success with Vitamin A coverage of more than 88 per cent.

In his words, Tsanyawa added, “the aim was to prevent uncomplicated and similar proportion of severe malaria incidences amongst the age group.”

“We are integrating the two exercises, although the MNCHW is a week-long event conducted twice every year.”

“It has a high impact on low-cost interventions offered to pregnant women and children below the age of five to increase coverage level of preventive and curative health indicators,” Tsanyawa stated.

Malaria: ‘Kano recorded over 2m hospital visits in 2021’ says commissioner

By Uzair Adam Imam 

Kano State has recorded more than 2.8 million hospital visits due to the menace of malaria in 2021, the Commissioner for Health, Aminu Tsanyawa, said.

Tsanyawa spoke yesterday at a press briefing to commemorate 2022 World Malaria Day.

This, according to Tsanyawa, made the disease the single most common reason for about 60 per cent of outpatient visitations and consultations in Kano state. 

However, Tsanyawa recalled that the Kano state government, in collaboration with its partners, did its best to mitigate the menace.

He said, “between July and October 202, the state government, in collaboration with its partners, administered more than 13,110,365 doses of malaria prevention drugs (sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine and Amodiaquine SP+AQ) with a view to preventing malaria and deaths in children under the age of five.”

Furthermore, Tsanyawa sounded a clarion call on residents to avail their children aged 3-59 months for the forthcoming 4-day cycles of mass distribution of malaria prevention drugs. 

90,000 malaria related deaths are recorded every year in Nigeria – NMEP

By Hussaina Sufyan Ahmad

MEP Advocacy Communication and Social Mobilisation (ACSM) Officer, Eunice Subair, disclose that 90,000 malaria deaths are recorded yearly in Nigeria at the quarterly meeting of the Civil Society in Malaria Control, Immunisation and Nutrition (ACOMIN), held in Abuja on October 3, 2021.

Subair noted that progress is being made to control malaria, with prevalence going down from 42% in 2010 to 27% in 2015, and 23% in 2018 (MIS 2010 and NDHS 2018).

She said malaria was still a significant burden in Nigeria, and that the Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention (SMC), was ongoing in all the eligible states.

She also requested the media to help in achieving the malaria elimination goal by making the disease a topmost topic of discourse to the public by including malaria issues in their programmes. And educating the public on the importance of sleeping inside ITNs every night to protect themselves against mosquito bites, among others.

Subair stressed the need for pregnant women to visit clinics at the earliest stage of pregnancy, to undergo antenatal care and admonished Nigerians to always go to the hospital whenever they suspect their systems to have malaria symptoms.

The Coordinator of the Civil Society in Malaria Control, Immunisation and Nutrition (ACOMIN), Ayo Ipinmoye, said more than three billion people, about half of the world’s population, are at risk of malaria, which is treatable and preventable.

He noted that the recently upgraded customised management information system would save the Federal Government about N293,700,000 in logistics cost, out of the N890m budgeted for the implementation of the malaria Intervention programme.

He further explained that the deployment of technology in data collection would help check malaria commodities, such as the ACT and insecticide-treated net.

He said with the latest upgrade of ACOMIS, data could be collected from the field on a real-time basis across all implementing states.