Efio-Ita Nyok|25 April 2016|6:57am
'So, even as financially trying as it is in the state, the governor still makes health care a priority, because for him, if the people are not healthy, then everything is simply going to crash'
In view of the 2016 World Malaria Day celebration coming up on the 25 of April, Negroid Haven met up with the Director General of Cross River State Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr. Mrs. Betta Edu In a brief interview. Her response spanned across a handful of areas including the array of activities lined up for the day by her Agency, her partnership with Mediatrix Development Foundation, the pet project of the wife of the Governor, Dr. Mrs. Linda Ayade, amongst other things. What follows is the interview after the exchanges of pleasantries between Negroid Haven correspondence and the DG.
NH: Can you give us a rundown on the World Malaria Day?
DG: Every year we have the World Malaria Day celebrated on the 25th of April. Basically, the reason for that day is to increase advocacy and support for the elimination of Malaria. The slogan for this year is, 'End Malaria for good'. Initially, when we started, we were at the level of control. Then we moved from control to say, 'Let us eliminate Malaria'. It's an uphill task to eliminate Malaria. A lot is required, both from the preventive and curative angle. The preventive angle which we have been working on, ensures that every one in CRS sleeps under a Long Lasting Insecticide Treated Nets (LLITNs). We have equally been working on our environmental sanitation, to ensure that we keep our environment clean and we don't have breeding sites for Mosquitoes.
As part of the prevention for pregnant women, we provide intermittent preventive therapy for them. So, when a a woman is pregnant at 16, 32 and 36 weeks, we ask that woman to take some Malaria drugs like Larydox or SPs generally, so that she can first help herself from coming down with Malaria, and also give some form of immunity to her little foetus inside her.
Furthermore, on the prevention, we try to encourage indoor residual spraying and outdoor residual spraying. If you go to most hotels right now in Cross River State, you will find out that they spray their surroundings. In fact, last week I was at Ikom and De Jorani was fumigated. The last time I was at the Tinapa Lakeside Resort, that whole area was fumigated —you know they have some form of stagnant water behind there. So, they fumigate that area. So, outdoor spraying and indoor spraying would prevent Mosquitoes and then of course prevent Malaria. That's really where we go on the prevention.
For treatment we encourage that first, every one must test before treating. You can either test with the RDTs or with the microscope. Microscope is the gold standard, but RDT is what is readily available. And they are very accessible and good if we have the right technicalities. That is, if we have skilled people who can use it. They can detect Malaria. So, once you're tested and you are found positive, you can go ahead and treat for Malaria. If we can treat every one, do a strong contact tracing and treat everyone who has the parasite, you know the Mosquito perch on you, pull off the parasite from you and take it to the next person; so, if can treat all of us and eliminate the parasite in our blood, then the Mosquito has nothing to pick up to take to the next person. That's another method of eliminating Malaria for good.
NH: Madam DG, what is the level of preparedness of your agency towards the success of the day?
DG: We have the Roll Back Malaria Programme domiciled in Cross River State Primary Health Care Development Agency. It is the state elimination programme, and we have a director who is in charge of it —Dr. Iwara U. Iwara. For this year's World Malaria Day we have been having series of stakeholders' meeting as a build up to to the World Malaria Day. We have gone through the different programmes and we have come up with the final resolutions on the things we want to do on this World Malaria Day. We are partnering with the wife of the Governor, HE Dr. Mrs. Linda Ayade, who has a pet project that is called Mediatrix Development Foundation. One of the flagship of the Mediatrix Development Foundation is the Hunt Malaria Initiative. They have created over 30 clubs, the Hunt Malaria Initiatives Clubs across primary, secondary and tertiary institutions in Cross River State. They have disseminated these study books about Malaria that you have here (DG refers to two books on her table).
They have created young ambassadors that will go back to their schools to be Malaria ambassadors to educate, inform and mobilise the community to eliminate Malaria. So, we are partnering with her for the Malaria Day. We started on Wednesday with an advocacy visit to University of Calabar, where we had over 5, 000 students in attendance and she distributed bed nets to every students. And she equally advocated that every student leaving at the hostels in University of Calabar should sleep inside Insecticide Treated Protected Nets. When you use the word, 'under', they would just hang and tie it like this and sleep under; so, now, the emphasis is sleep inside it. It's deliberate —sleep inside insecticides treated nets. That was on Wednesday.
On Thursday, we had 'Good Morning Cross River' at Cross River State Broadcasting Corporation (CRBC) where we solicited for support for the World Malaria Day and then on Saturday, we would be at the Hit FM station to discuss World Malaria Day. We have two out reaches on the 25 of April: One at Calabar Municipality, one at Calabar South, Ekpo Abasi. In Calabar Municipality at Ediba Street where people are supposed to come and access bed nets, all Malaria commodities, be tested, be treated free of charge. Secondly, on the 25 of April which is the World Malaria Day, we will be doing a walk to 'end Malaria for good', from Eleven Eleven Round About to Zoo Garden where the event would hold. We are expecting the Deputy Governor and the wife of the Governor to lead the walk to that point and we are equally expecting that everybody will turn up en masse including members of her Hunt Malaria Initiative Club at schools. They will all be there, we want everybody to lend that support in kicking Malaria out for good. Beyond that, every Primary Health Care center in Cross River State will be offering free testing for Malaria and free treatment, as well as health education to persons who come to the facility to treat for Malaria in our communities. These are the things we have lined up for this year's World Malaria Day.
NH: What are the challenges you anticipate during the World Health Day celebration and how do you intend to surmount them?
DG: First, we had financial constraints because we had all the programmes which we wanted to do but we were not able to get enough partners to support us. The other challenge which we envisaged while were putting in measures to be able to curb it, would be traffic on that day, trying to move the people from the Round About to the terminal, but we have put in a lot of measures, we have been in discussion with the Commissioner for Police, State Security Adviser, Department of Public Transport, VIO and the Road Safety to be able to give us the coverage because we are expecting a lot of persons, trying to guard people on the road is not usually easy, but we hope that we can be able to effectively do all of that on that day and we pray for a good weather.
NH: In this era of a lean state coffers, how do you run your agency?
DG: The governor made it clear from the very start that these are very financially trying times. Be that as it may, the governor fully understands, and as part of his campaign promises, he wants to deliver quality health care to the grassroots. So, even as financially trying as it is in the state, the governor still makes health care a priority, because for him, if the people are not healthy, then everything is simply going to crash. If you don't have a healthy work force to come to the office and work, who works? If you have students staying out of school, then you are loosing manpower. Useful time, productive time that would have been put into improving different sectors of the state. It's a whole chain, everything ties down to health. If you are not healthy, you can not function anywhere else and so, that is why the governor has priority for health care, even as there are very lean resources.
Secondly, we have partners that have been very very helpful: UNFPA, WHO, UNICEF, name it; we have a lot of partners that have been very helpful. And every day, we go out to source for more partners. Because at this time when we are having a credit crunch, the only way to survive is to bring in all stakeholders to actively cooperate in improving health care in Cross River State.
NH: I wish you a successful World Malaria Day celebration!
DG: Thank you, please.
