The Chief Medical Director (CMD) of State Hospital in Ota,Dr Shomade Taokfeek,has advised both the Federal and state governments to intensify efforts to increase public awareness aimed at in further reducing death cases from Malaria transmission.Taofeek gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Ota, Ogun.He emphasised the need to also strengthen the primary healthcare centres( PHCs) so as to stem the wave of malaria transmission in the country.
The CMD lauded the Federal and state governments’ efforts at winning the fight against Malaria through their various programmes.He said that it was not as bad at present as it used to be in the past as Nigeria had carried out a lot of efforts and activities both at the tertiary, primary and secondary health care levels to check the persisting deaths of people through Malaria transmission.
The CMD explained that the three tiers of government had trained personnel who are capable of diagnosing the disease and competent to prescribe appropriate drugs to treat Malaria among the people.“If Malaria is properly tackled, especially at the Primary health care level,the country will stop recording untimely deaths, ” he said.Taofeek listed some of the efforts by government to tackle Malaria to include:making a diagnosis before treatment,adding that it is not all fevers that are malaria.He named two common types of Malaria in the country as: complicated malaria and uncomplicated malaria.
He recommended the Artemisinin-Based Combination Therapy(ACT) as the best anti-malaria drugs to treat malaria in the country.The CMD added that government had been giving out treated insecticide nets to the public , and encouraged children under 5 and pregnant women to always use because they were more vulnerable to Malaria.Taofeek called on Nigerians to ensure that their environments were properly clean to further stem the wave of Malaria in the country.He added that these were various measures put in place by the government to eradicate malaria transmission in the country.NAN reports that the World Malaria Day is marked annually on April 25 to focus global attention on Malaria,and its devastating impacts on families, communities and societal development, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa.(NAN)
