Kwara State Governor, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, on Friday flagged-off a statewide campaign to curtail malaria, calling it one of the first fruits of his early interventions in the health sector where he recently paid N232 million counterpart funds.
The campaign, named Malaria-Free-Kwara, qualifies Kwarans to access free malaria treatments in the health centres near them in the state.
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It is part of the Roll-Back-Malaria Partnership, a donor-funded programme.
“One of the interventions we have made in the health sector was to pay N82m (out of the total N232million) counterpart funds to show commitment to be involved in the global anti-malaria campaign led by the Roll-Back-Malaria Partnership, a donors-driven initiative to stamp out the menace of malaria in the world, especially in our country Nigeria,” AbdulRazaq said at the official launch of the Malaria-Free-Kwara in Ilorin.
“The Malaria-Free-Kwara we are launching this morning is a product of that timely intervention, which is to complement the humanitarian efforts of the Roll-Back-Malaria Partnership. No serious government, especially in Nigeria, should trivialise the global campaign against malaria. In 2018 alone, Nigeria recorded 100 million malaria cases with at least 300,000 deaths resulting from such cases. Such shameful data contributed to our recurring low rating in global development indices.”
AbdulRazaq, who is currently part of the entourage of President Muhammadu Buhari to Japan, was represented at the event by the Secretary to the State Government, Dr Saba Jibril.
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“As I flag off the Malaria Free Kwara campaign for year 2019, I request all Kwarans and caregivers in the state to visit the nearest health facility to them to access this service in the interest of everyone and overall well-being of our state,” he said.
Lamenting that the anti-malaria campaign had been purely donor-driven since 2008 when it started, AbdulRazaq said the payment of the counterpart funds had qualified Kwara for such future interventions by donors in the global campaign against the deadly disease.
Meanwhile, more than 2,500 patients have benefitted from a three-day Intensive Medical Intervention programme organised by the US-based Kwara State Association of Nigerians (KSANG) and Sakinah Medical Outreach in conjunction with the Kwara State Government.
The free healthcare services, which cut across the three senatorial districts of the state, was held on August 28 to 30 at three different locations — Ajase Ipo, Tsaragi and Okelele primary healthcare centres.
KSANG President, Dr Yusuf Adanlawo, said the gesture was aimed at complementing AbdulRazaq’s intention at improving healthcare in the state.
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He expressed satisfaction over the turn-out of patients suffering from different ailments such as malaria, diabetes, hypertension, cataract and sickle cell in all the selected locations, adding that the project gulped about N20 million for medications only while the government provided the facilities to carry out the surgical aspect and other logistics.
According to him, the surgical operation for at least 150 patients would be carried out at the General Hospital, Ilorin, and Sobi Specialist Hospital in the next two weeks’ time.
