Speaking off the back of a ministerial press briefing organised by the Federal Ministry of Health in Abuja, the nation’s capital to commemorate the 2015 World Malaria Day, the Marketing Director, West Africa, of the company, Oguzhan Silivrili, expressed the readiness of the firm to support the new five-year National Malaria Strategic Plan announced by the Federal Government.
Mortein was one of the corporate bodies that mounted exhibition stands at the press briefing venue in solidarity with government’s renewed initiative to stamp out malaria in the country.
“Mortein has been at the forefront of the fight against malaria in Nigeria via a number of initiatives targeted at empowering Nigerians so that together we can defeat malaria. We believe malaria can be eliminated in Nigeria which is the reason Mortein owned by RB Nigeria is championing the cause for a malaria-free Nigeria”, Silivrili said.
While disclosing the company’s collaboration efforts on anti-malaria campaign, he said they included; strategic partnerships with the National Malaria Elimination Programme (NMEP), the lead agency of the Federal Ministry of Health on the elimination of malaria, National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives (NANNM) and other relevant government bodies. “In the last few years, we have gone around Nigeria with our Mortein Anti- Malaria Campaign to equip Nigerians with the right information they need to know to protect themselves from mosquitoes and stay healthy.
Our New Mum Programmes (NMP) has reached approximately 5 million new moms in the hospitals since inception; we also have the mobile clinic, Health On Wheels (HOW) going door-to-door across Nigeria and open market activations across Nigeria”, he said.
Silivrili added that another over 10,000 mums have been reached through activation at the Primary Health Centres across Nigeria jus as many more are being reached through the church/mosque activations pan-Nigeria even as other platforms are being designed to reach more Nigerians. He said 500,000 moms would be reached this year.
The Minister of Health, Dr. Khaliru Alhassan represented by the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Health, Mr. Linus Awute, said the efforts put into the fight against malaria since year 2000 have significantly reduced maternal child mortality in Nigeria. He emphasised the need for more collaboration. “When we started this journey 15 years ago, the statistics we had were so disturbing.
Today we have made progress, but the world has shifted from malaria control to malaria elimination, justifying the theme for this year’s World Malaria Day,’Invest in the future. Defeat malaria,” he said. He explained that the National Malaria Strategic Plan 2014-2020 was the result of a painstaking effort after the grand initiative of the Federal Ministry of Health supported by development partners.
According to him the partnership has enabled the ministry to come up with the strategic plan, which is a credible template for mutual accountability in the effort targeted at malaria management and elimination in the country.
The National Coordinator, (NMEP, Dr. Nnenna Ezeigwe, in her overview of the National Malaria Strategic Plan, explained that the plan was developed as a road map for a coordinated fight against malaria in Nigeria derived from the national Strategic Health Development Plan.
“Before now Nigeria had implemented three previous plans. 2001 to 2005 the plan was developed immediately after African summit on roll back malaria on 25 April of 2000, it launched Nigeria into the RBM (Roll Back Malaria) initiative”, she said.
0 comments:
Post a Comment