PanAfricare, an international non-profit organisation, has sensitised students drawn from secondary schools in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on the prevention and elimination of malaria.
The organisation carried out a malaria exhibition basketball game in collaboration with partners under its Power Forward project and the National Malaria Elimination Programme (NMEP) in Abuja as part of activities to mark this year’s World Malaria Day.
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There was also distribution of long-lasting insecticide nets to beneficiaries during the basketball game.
Power Forward is funded by the ExxonMobil Foundation and currently implemented by PanAfricare in partnership with the National Basketball Association (NBA).
Speaking during the exercise, the Country Director of PanAfricare Nigeria, Dr Patrick Adah, said the organisation would take the malaria awareness campaign to 40 project schools within the FCT; targeting over 30,000 student communities.
He said, “Through the Power Forward project, we have reached over 292,000 people with malaria prevention messages in schools and communities and engaged about 3,600 students on public health awareness and life skills education in the FCT in the past nine years of the project’s implementation.”
He further said other activities towards eliminating malaria by the organisation included free malaria test, dispensing of Artemisinin-based Combination Therapy (ACT), distribution of 4,000 insecticide nets and tournament debates on malaria across the 40 project schools.
Dr Perpetua Uhomoibhi, National Coordinator of NMEP, said all hands must be on deck towards ending malaria as government could not do it alone.
She advised Nigerians to keep their environments clean, sleep under insecticide treated nets and do malaria test when they had fever as not all fevers were malaria.
Gbemisola Abudu, NBA Africa Vice President and Country Head of NBA Nigeria, said using basketball for malaria sensitisation and other public health messages had impacted a lot of lives in the FCT since the project commenced.
Abudu said, “Through these clinics the kids attain life skills such as discipline, resilience, focus, among others, that will stay with them to adulthood.”
The Project Manager of Power Forward, Terfa Akpoyibo, said the exercise had a multiplier effect as the young persons would in turn sensitise their families and communities on malaria.
One of the students, Ibok Mario of Divine Mercy Secondary School, said he learnt new things about malaria, especially how to use insecticide treated nets.
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