The Akwa Ibom government says it has provided free anti-malaria commodities in all public health facilities in the state for the treatment of malaria among its citizens.
The state Health Commissioner, Dr Dominic Ukpong, disclosed this on Tuesday in Uyo in a broadcast made to mark the 2017 World Malaria Day celebration.
Ukpong said that the state government had saturated health facilities with drugs and facilities such as Artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACTs), Sulphadoxine Pyrimethamine (SPs), Microscopes and Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT) kits.
He announced that the state government had established two sites for parasite and vector sentinel in Eket and Uyo local government areas respectively.
The commissioner added that government had also developed human capacity for efficient and effective service delivery.
Ukpong said that the state government had strong collaboration with the National Malaria Elimination Programme (NMEP), the Roll-Back Malaria partners, corporate organisations and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that this year’s theme is “End Malaria for Good” while the slogan asks the question “What is your role?”
Reflecting on the slogan of the celebration, the commissioner called for strong partnership and integrated efforts to ensure availability of malaria commodities to reduce the burden of malaria among citizens.
“The overall goal of this celebration is to energize our collective commitment to partner in the fight against malaria.
“The slogan also encourages the state, local governments and communities to play leadership role and take stock of achievements with a view to identifying gaps,” Ukpong said.
He noted that malaria still remained a major public health concern in our society and must be tackled seriously.
“Everybody has a role to play in the fight against malaria, individuals, families and groups all have their distinctive roles to play.
“This role must include environmental management, health care seeking behaviour and drug adherence to prevent resistance as well as sleeping inside the long lasting insecticidal net every night.
“Let us all contribute to end malaria for good,” the commissioner advised. (NAN)
