18th March, 2014
The Lagos State government targets protecting 1.5 million Lagos residents against mosquitoes as it begins the Indoor Residential Spraying, IRS, in six Local Government Areas in Lagos, southwest Nigeria.
The local governments are Ojo, Ikorodu, Badagry, Amuwo-Odofin, Kosofe and Ibeju-Lekki. The IRS, which kicks off at the weekend will last for 40 days. The exercise will involve the fumigation of houses in the councils.
According to the Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Jide Idris, the total population of areas to be fumigated is put at 1.5 million people which would be protected against mosquito bite and malaria infection.
He said the exercise would last for 40 days, adding that spraying of households in the state with insecticides in some parts of the state would kick-off on Saturday, 15 March, 2014.
Idris urged residents to cooperate with the government officials, who will be going round the city to fumigate their households.
“IRS is the application of long-lasting chemical insecticides on the walls, roofs of all houses and domestic animals, shelters in a given area, in order to kill the adult vector mosquitoes that land and rest on the surfaces.
“The primary effects of IRS towards curtailing malaria transmission are to reduce vector mosquitoes so that they can no longer transmit malaria parasites from one person to the other,” he explained.
Idris stated that the IRS would take place in six councils and the Local Council Development Areas, LCDAs carved out of them, assuring that the state government was also scaling up its efforts to include Epe Local Government and the LCDAs within the council.
“The Larva Source Management (Larviciding) is also expected to cover over 2,455 hectares of mosquito breeding sites in Surulere and Kosofe LGAs and protect an estimated population of 1,5000,000 people,” he said.
“Lagos is currently the only state in the country implementing the integrated vector management project incorporating IRS and larviciding. The state government will intensify efforts to mobilise residents about the spray days and schedule visits,” he stated.
The commissioner urged those who reacted negatively to the insecticides/chemicals to report to the Primary Health Centres, PHCs, in their domains, as adequate plan had been made to receive and address such issues.