ROTARY International, in its community outreach to pregnant women and children, has stressed the importance of preventing malaria and malnutrition to reduce the ill health and deaths associated with these conditions.
The outreach was part of a project tagged “Little Steps, Big Steps: Tackling Malaria and Malnutrition among Pregnant Women and Under-5 Children in Lagos, Oyo, and Ogun States,” and under the initiative of the Rotary Action Group for Reproductive Maternal and Child Health (RMCH), to cover 165 Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) in the states.
The project’s manager and Rotary Past Governor, Mr Adeniji Raji, speaking at the outreach, said Nigeria has the highest burden of malaria deaths in the world, accounting for almost 31 percent of world malaria deaths, and it is a major problem for pregnant women and children.
He said the goal of the project was to reduce the incidence of malaria and malnutrition through four thematic areas, including training of health workers, community outreach, supplying malaria drugs and equipment to PHCs and media campaign.
“We trained about 455 health workers to be able to pass appropriate knowledge to mothers and children; we have community outreaches where we give information to pregnant women and mothers on dangers of malaria and malnutrition and the best way to treat their children when they are born and on complementary foods.
“Also, we give drugs for malaria and equipment to PHCs. We are dealing with 27 LGAs and 165 PHCs in these 3 states. We are given 96 PHCs in 15 local governments in Oyo State. This forms about 60 percent of the project. Oyo has a higher malaria prevalence. The media campaign is to change attitudes about malaria; it is to inform the public on the dangers of malaria and malnutrition.
“We have added outreaches to traditional birth attendants to ensure that mothers who go there are not left out. We are linking them with the PHCs in their vicinity to ensure we have safe babies, safe pregnancies, and safe deliveries.”
The project manager for the RMCH German section, Tina Bauer-Odong, in a remark, expressed satisfaction with the large turnout of women for the outreach and urged them to sleep inside the mosquito nets, get tested for malaria, and prevent malnutrition.
According to her, malnutrition depletes immunity and can make individuals more vulnerable to malaria and therefore should avail themselves of facilities provided for them at the PHCs to remain healthy.
Read Also: Ekiti govt launches security jacket for motorcycle, tricycle riders
Executive Secretary of the Oyo State Primary Healthcare Board, Dr Muideen Olatunji, speaking through Mrs Bolanle Adeyinka, assured of his support to ensure a reduction in maternal mortality and morbidity rate in the state.
According to him, the community outreach will help ensure that more pregnant women, nursing mothers, and children get screened for malaria and that cases of malaria can be treated in a bid to reduce cases of deaths and ill health in the state.
and then