Ogun, SFH deploy 1,180 town announcers for mosquito nets distribution

The Ogun state government in collaboration with Global Fund Malaria Project, and Society For Family Health among other development partners have deployed 1,180 town announcers across the 236 wards of the 20 Local Governments in the state to help in creating awareness about the distribution of 3.1m insecticide-treated nets in November.

The town announcers who are five per ward have to help communicate to the residents about the importance of the 2024 Insecticide Treated Nets Mass Campaign and how the residents can benefit from tackling the burden of Malaria.

Speaking with our correspondent on Sunday after the orientation for the town announcers for Ijebu East Local Government, the ITN Coordinator for the local government, Abiodun Rafiu, said, “What we did here is today is to give our town announcers the orientation of the job ahead of them.

“For the 2024 ITN Mass Campaign, the five announcers per each of the 11 wards of this local government are to help sensitise the people on the importance of this campaign.

“They are to inform the residents of the need for them to register for the net after which they will go and use their net card to collect the insecticide-treated nets at a designated point when the distribution begins”.

ITN Coordinator for Ijebu North Local Government, Mr Oladeji Julius, also said that the 55 town announcers, five per each of the 11 wards of the local government have been armed with sufficient information to help achieve the success of the insecticide net distribution.

Julius said, “We have told our town announcers of their importance in this critical national assignment because having adequate information is very key to the success of this ITN Mass Campaign.

“They are to help us sensitise the household in each ward to how they can benefit from the distribution of the insecticide-treated nets by registering their names for the exercise and then going to exchange their net card for the treated net during distribution. It is to ensure that nobody is left behind in the fight against Malaria in Nigeria”.

Other ITN LG Coordinators who Spoke with our Correspondent were John Saibu for Ogun Waterside, Julia Bienose for Ijebu-Ode and Rapheal Izi for Ijebu North-East

The Ogun State Health Educator, Dr Olubukola Omotosho during a recent media engagement held in Abeokuta, disclosed the readiness of the state government in collaboration with its development partners to distribute 3.1m insecticide-treated nets to the residents of the state.

Dr Omotosho said that the household registration and mobilisation runs from October 31 to November 6, 2024, while the net distribution starts on November 19.

She said, “This exercise is part of the 2024 ITN Mass Campaign and during registration, the mobiliser will generate a token or net card which each household will use to collect the nets when the distribution begins. This exercise will be done across all the 20 Local Government Areas in the state”.

The exercise which is done every three years is targeted at combating the burden of Malaria through the use of insecticide-treated mosquito nets.

This is just as Nigeria is said to account for one in every five deaths caused by Malaria globally

Speaking at the media parley, the Project Director, of Global Fund Malaria, SFH, Mr John Ocholi decried the low level of insecticide-treated nets usage in Ogun saying that the state currently records between 28 to 30 per cent usage.

Ocholi disclosed that the essence of the free distribution of the treated net is to combat the scourge of Malaria and make the country achieve zero pandemics just like Egypt, Algeria and Cape Verde in Africa.