27th April, 2017
The Association of Community Pharmacists of Nigeria, Kwara branch, has called on Federal Government to scale up more support for malaria eradication through improved funding.
The Chairman of the association, Mr Babatunde Samuel, made the call in a statement he signed on behalf of the association on Wednesday in Ilorin.
He stated that there was need for primary health centres across the country to function properly.
He reiterated that the disease remained the second leading cause of death from infectious diseases in Africa after HIV/AIDS.
The Chairman noted that malaria was preventable and curable if all hands were on deck to curb the killer disease.
Samuel called on the public, especially pregnant women, children under the age of five and non immune travellers to sleep under treated nets, .
He also urged the public to clear breeding sites of mosquitoes around their houses, wear protective clothes at night and desist from using monotherapies to treat malaria.
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He said the public should use a combination of anti malarial medicines for treatment of the disease.
He explained that as part of activities to mark the World Malaria Day in the state, the association carried out health outreach for people of Rore community in Ilorin.
He said the outreach involved dissemination of health information on malaria through health talk and free malaria screening for more than 250 members of the community using Rapid Diagnosis Test.
According to him, over 50 free treated mosquitoes nets were presented to pregnant women and nursing mothers in the community.
Samuel therefore advised pregnant women to take malaria preventive medicines at their ante-natal clinics.