OYO State government has said that it is soon to commence seasonal malaria chemoprophylaxis as part of its measures to reduce cases of malaria in those most vulnerable to the disease during the peak of the malaria transmission season.
Director, Primary Health Care, Oyo State Ministry of Health, Dr Wole Lawal, who made this disclosure at the Oyo State Malaria Technical Working Group meeting, stated that the intervention will start in seven local government councils in its pilot phase.
According to him, “Its Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been sent to the Ministry of Justice for legal verification and we are glad to be part of its implementation in the country.”
Dr Lawal said this would entail administering monthly doses of antimalarial drugs to children below five years during peak malaria transmission season.
In a report on malaria case management in the state, Oyo State Malaria Programme Manager, Mrs Elizabeth Adeleke stated that in April another round of external quality assurance of malaria tests we will carry out to ensure correct diagnosis of malaria.
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She stated that an additional 244 facilities have also been added to the existing 182 US President’s Malaria Initiative for States (PMI-S), which support public health facilities to provide free malaria commodities across the state.
Oyo State coordinator for PMI-S, Dr Oluwayemisi Ayandipo, declared that tools for data collection were a challenge to malaria programming in the state just as electronic medical records of private hospitals need to be linked with the national data to ensure data generated on malaria from them are also captured.
Mrs Olubunmi Oladumeji in an update of key malaria indicators in Oyo state stated that 439,637 persons had a fever, and 296,825 persons tested positive for malaria; while 3088 cases of severe malaria cases were recorded between January and December 2021.