Ogun, group set to distribute 3.4m free mosquito bed nets

The Ogun State Government in collaboration with Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM), a non-governmental organisation (NGO), is set to distribute 3.4 million free bed nets to the people of the state.

The distribution exercise, according to Mrs. Adeyinka Olamide, an official of the state Ministry of Health, who spoke with journalists in Abeokuta yesterday, would be carried out through the Catholic Relief Service (CRS) in 1,255 points across the 20 local councils in the state.

Olamide, who spoke at a one-day workshop on “Long Lasting Insecticidal Nets”, organised for journalists in Abeokuta, the state capital, said the distribution exercise would hold between Tuesday, May 1 and Saturday, May 5, 2018.

She said one of the major objectives of the distribution exercise was to make sure that “for every two persons in Ogun State, there is one bed net to sleep inside.”

Meanwhile, a member of the campaign team, Mrs. Babalola Motunrayo, who also spoke, stressed that malaria is the most common preventable public health problem in Nigeria, yet 97 per cent of Nigerians, especially children under five years of age and pregnant women, are most vulnerable.

Her words: “According to World Health Organisation (WHO), the best opportunity for sealing up malaria prevention is the use of Long Lasting Insecticide Net (LLIN). Sleeping under the net protects you from mosquito bite and to ensure sound and undisturbed sleep, it is important we sleep under mosquito net”.

Another team member, Mr. Elijah Egwu, in his lecture, gave an overview of the Cash Asset and Transfer (CAT).

Elijah said that the LLIN mass campaigns in Nigeria had traditionally been “paper-based”, adding that the CAT is a technology innovation introduced in 2017 to improve the efficiency and accountability of LLIN mass campaigns.