There was a mild drama on Wednesday when Noimot Salako-Oyedele, Deputy Governor of Ogun State, slept under an Insecticide Treated Net in Abeokuta, the state capital.
This played out during the flag off of the Insecticide Treated Net’s (ITN) campaign at Obas’ complex located within the state secretariat at Oke Mosan.
The programme was organised by the Federal Ministry of Health and Society for Family Health in collaboration with Ogun State Government.
Sleeping under ITNs has been adopted as one of the strategises in preventing malaria prevalence in Nigeria.
At the flag-off ceremony, the Deputy Governor who was decorated as the Net Ambassador, was expected to perform the a symbolic demonstration of how to sleep under the treated nets in order to encourage residents to imbibe the practice.
A bed was already laid with the nets fixed it for the Deputy Governor to perform the symbolic exercise.
And to the admiration of the crowd comprising developing partners, medical experts, and others stakeholders, Salako-Oyedele assisted by the Commissioner of Health, Dr Tomi Coker, opened the net and mounted the bed to take a snap, drawing a wild applause from the audience.
Ogun, others to get 15m treated nets
Speaking earlier at the event, the Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire disclosed that over 15million ITNs would be distributed to beneficiaries in Ogun, Katsina, Jigawa and Gombe States.
Ehanire, who was represented by the National Coordinator of the National Malaria Elimination Programme (NMEP), Dr Perpetual Uhomoibhi, explained that the nets would be distributed to beneficiaries across all the local government areas with funding from the Global funds.
The Minister noted that the campaigns against malaria have been yielding positive results, saying Nigeria recorded decrease in malaria prevalence to 23 percent in the 2018 National Demographic Health summit.
He said “The use of ITN has been adopted as one of the key strategies for the prevention and elimination of malaria in the country by the Federal government.
“To ensure accountability, quality and efficient delivery of ITN, we have also adopted the use of technology for the campaign process.
“We foresee a future where programme data will be viewed real time and decision making will become quicker among and more effective.”
Ehanire, therefore, called on the states to take ownership of the anti – malaria campaigns by ensuring effective use of treated nets in order to reduce malaria prevalence in the country.
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