One Million Children to Get Free Malaria Treatment in Adamawa

Daji Sani

One million children from age three to 59 months old are billed to get free malaria treatment in Adamawa State in 2022.

The Adamawa State Malaria Program Manager, Mr. Benjamin Nashion, disclosed this in a one-day sensitisation media workshop that was held yesterday at Homtel Hotel, Yola.

Nashion said that the feat would be implemented through a World Health Organisation (WHO) intervention programme called “Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention” (SMC).

He noted that the exercise for 2022 would start on Thursday, June 2, 2022, and end in October this year, adding that the programme was deliberately scheduled to hold during the rainy season when malaria was prevalent.

Nashion urged the media practitioners to help to sensitise the general public about the program for optimal result.

Also speaking, World Health Organisation (WHO) Malaria Consultant for North-east Office, Dr. Ini Abasi Nglass, said that the exercise recorded tremendous success in 2021.

Nglass, however, noted that the exercise encountered some pockets of challenges like late arrival of materials and lack of clear understanding of the process by some health personnel.

She noted that these challenges have been taken care of by training health personnel and ensuring that materials were deployed in good time. 

She said that the event would last for four days while a mop up exercise would be conducted on the fifth day to attend to children that could not be attended to during the last exercise.

Nglass expressed optimism that this year’s exercise would attain 100 per cent success by covering all the target children.