Breakthrough Action Nigeria holds 3-day meeting to promote healthy society

To promote a synergy for a healthy society in Oyo State, Breakthrough Action Nigeria organized a three-day media review of its media engagement in support of the Oyo State Government’s interventions on malaria, tuberculosis and covid-19 vaccination.

The parley had about 50 representatives of 23 media stations in the state and representatives of the Oyo State Ministry of Health and Oyo state Primary Healthcare Board on Breakthrough Action Nigeria’s thematic core areas — Malaria, Tuberculosis and COVID-19 vaccination.

State coordinator, Breakthrough Action Nigeria, Oyo State office, Mrs Oluwatoyin Afachang said the parley was to review achievements, success stories and gaps of its media engagement on Malaria, Tuberculosis and Covid-19 vaccination as it forges ahead in the next six months of its activity to increase health-seeking behaviour and wellness of the community.

According to Mrs Afachang, “We have been seeing the impact of these in the society; people are now empowered to go to their nearest health centre to seek care if they feel any symptoms of Malaria, or they themselves or their neighbour have been coughing for some time to go and find out what is wrong with them rather than resorting to self-medication. These are some of the things that we have used the media to propagate and people are learning to ask questions about their health.”

“The synergy between the media partners and the stakeholders in government is helping us to be able to reach out to the people faster and there wouldn’t be any bottlenecks, since there are contact persons both at the ministry of health and the state primary healthcare board.

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“Our prayer is that the media continue to reach out to the people to give them information and skills they need through public awareness so that we all live in a healthy society and the state itself will be healthy.”

Monitoring and Evaluation officer for TB and leprosy programme, Ministry of Health, Oyo State, Mrs Abimbola Oyebamji, said Tuberculosis is curable, provided patients are detected early and treated promptly according to the specified government’s guidelines.

According to her, one TB patient can infect 10 to 15 more people and so the media providing complete and correct information to people can save them from this disease still shrouded in myths and misconceptions in the community.

Mrs Oyebamji, therefore, urged the media to always provide the public with information they need to make intelligent choices about their health, dispel myths and misconceptions on TB as well as promote TB services in the state.

Health Promotion Officer, Oyo State Primary Healthcare Board, Mrs Folasade Oladele, called for increased media collaboration with the state government on different health conditions and interventions, especially at the grassroots, and increase patronage of the state’s primary health care centres by the citizenry.