Judex Okoro, Calabar
The United States government has concluded arrangements to spend the N2.3bn on malaria eradication programme in Cross River.
The programme, which is under the auspices of the US President’s Malaria Initiative will involve the distribution of 2,376,400 mosquito-treated nets across the 18 local government areas of the state.
The Malaria Logistics Advisor of the Global Health Supply Chain in Calabar, Godwin Aidenagbon, who disclosed this during a malaria eradication sensitisation workshop for journalists in Calabar on Monday said the programme would run for nine weeks just as 11,000 people had been deployed to ensure the success of the exercise.
Aidenagbon said the campaign method would be deployed to cover the entire state down to the family level.
Speaking on the efficacy of the nets, he disclosed that the insecticide-treated net has been certified for use domestically by the World Health Organisation.
He said only women will be eligible to collect the nets on behalf of their families in line with the national policy, adding that one net would be given to every two persons and they were expected to increase the net use in the state to over 80%.
Also speaking, Dr. Iwara Iwara the Director of Public Health, Cross River State Ministry of Education, said the programme was the second phase of an earlier one held in 2015.
He said the nets would be effective in malaria control because they are airy, fight mosquitoes and also have barrier effects against mosquitoes.
According to him, the government has put in place a micro-plane to ascertain those to benefit.