Jigawa government says it has achieved 99 per cent coverage of its 3.6 million people in the just-concluded 2021 Insecticide Treated Nets (ITNs) replacement campaign.
Dr Abdullahi Namadi, Director of Public Health at the state’s Ministry of Health, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Dutse on Sunday that 99 per cent targeted households already received new nets.
“As far as the replacement of bed nets is concerned, it has been a big success. The distribution has already been completed. We have collated the data and we have achieved 99 per cent of our target.
“This means 99 per cent of the households that are supposed to get the nets based on our micro plan have gotten them.
“The remaining 1 per cent could not be reached because there were some issues with regards to inadequacy simply because there are some people who migrated to the state after the micro plan was done.
“And as a result, such population could not be covered. But we have achieved 99 per cent success and I think this is an excellent result,’’ he said.
NAN reports that the state government distributed about four million nets to residents in collaboration with partner agencies like Malaria Consortium, the Catholic Relief Services and the National Malaria Elimination Programme.
Namadi also told NAN that the state government, in collaboration with the partners had taken measures to ensure that beneficiaries used the nets effectively to achieve the desired goal of drastically reducing mosquito bites.
“The key thing we did was to ensure that we educated people on the need to sleep under the nets.
“This is because malaria is preventable with consistent and effective use of ITNs as they have been treated with safe insecticide,’’ he said.
Namadi added that government would continue to educate the people on the need to sleep under the nets to protect themselves against malaria.
