Why World Malaria Day Celebration is significant – Dr. Leghemo speaks .Uncovers how malaria kills
By Inegbagha Majesty FCIDA
Dr. Kesiye .T. Leghemo is the
Bayelsa Sate Program Manager for the State Malaria Elimination Programme,
Ministry of Health. In this exclusive interview with the Editor of Global
Overseer, the renowned medical Doctor bares his mind on sundry issues regarding
malaria and its consequences.
He spoke on the significant of World
Malaria Day Celebration scheduled to hold on Wednesday 25th of
April, 2018.
The humble, experience and exemplary
assiduous medical Doctor also spoke on how malaria kills, the causes and
preventive measures and how we can unanimously work as a team to perfectly
eradicate malaria in the state among other vital issues. Excerpt:
Bayelsa State will join the rest of the world to celebrate World
Malaria Day on April, 25. What is this day all about?
The 2018 World Malaria Day would be celebrated on the 25th
of April, 2018. The World Malaria Day is frequently celebrated every year on
the 25th of April. It is an avenue where the world showcases,
especially health community try to create more awareness about the burdens, the
problems associated with malaria. So, we try to increase advocacy; increase
sensitization about issues surrounding malaria so that we gather partnership,
we gather commitment by government; commitment by the various critical
stakeholders especially the Roll Back
Malaria Stakeholders on how to move the country towards elimination of
malaria; and globally towards eradication of malaria in the world.
How does this celebration started?
World Malaria Day Celebration started long time ago. The
World Health Assembly, which is an arm of the World Health Organization decided
to use April 25 every year as a day set aside to mark this World Malaria Day.
Because when you mark a day you create significance to that day, that people
realized that there is an importance attach to it. It is a day set aside by the
World Health Assembly to hold government and the countries accountable towards
the mass eradication of malaria.
Why is this celebration
significance?
It is significance because it is time where every critical
stakeholder in the elimination of malaria will come together and assess the
work we are doing so far in the elimination of malaria and know the challenges;
see where there have been issues and try to solve them together so that the
government will come together, the private sector will come together,
individuals will come together and even the medical people will come together.
Everybody is involved in this fight against malaria. So, we want everybody to
come together and assess where we are. Because malaria is a preventable
disease, it is accruable disease and it is a treatable disease. So, we should
be able to eliminate malaria. There is 2014 to 2030 plan for elimination of
malaria in Nigeria. So, we need to know where we are even in our set plan of
Nigeria Malaria Strategic Plan. We need to know where we are in the National
Malaria Strategic Plan that we have set which will expire in 2030. But we need
to know where we are currently.
What is your message to Bayelsans
with regards to this celebration?
Now, the Theme for this year celebration is “Ready to Beat Malaria
Together We Can”. So, my message to Bayelsans and everyone is we need to join
hands to beat malaria. Malaria is treatable, it is preventable and it is
curable. So, everybody can join hand by simply making sure that we all sleep
inside the Long Lasting Insecticide Treated Net which is commonly known as
Mosquitoes Net. We should always test before treating any fever because not
every fever is malaria. But before you treat make sure you test. When you
confirm that you have malaria before you treat for malaria. And every pregnant
woman should register for Anti-natal so that she is giving drugs that will
prevent her from having malaria. And also she will be giving net that will help
her prevent malaria. When we do some of these simple things, clear our
environment, prevent stagnant water so that there is less breeding ground for
mosquitoes, then we are moving towards eliminating malaria especially in
Bayelsa State.
What actually causes malaria?
Malaria is a parasitic disease. It is caused by the parasite
plasmodium. Now, plasmodium is transmitted to human being from the female anopheles mosquito. So, when the female
anopheles mosquito that is infected with this plasmodium parasite bite a human
being is now transmits the parasite to individuals. Now, there are four types
of plasmodium parasite. We have the plastimodium falciparum, plastimodium vivax,
plastimodium malariae and plastimodium ovale. Now, there is also current newer
one which is call plastimodium knowlensi. So, it is quite new but also seen in
monkeys too. But it is not common around here. It is common in South East Asia.
It is suffice to say that 95 percent of the malaria we have in Nigeria and
Bayelsa state is caused by the plastimodium falciparum which is the one that
can cause severe malaria most times. So because if you don’t treat malaria once
you begin to see these symptoms, you will become severe leading to death.
How does malaria kill?
Now, malaria kills simply it affects the blood cells. It affects
the blood cells and reduced the quantity and level and concentration of blood
in the individual.
Also, there is a reaction in the fever. If you have a lot of
fever, fever alone can cause dehydration and everything. So, some of the severe
forms of malaria is unconsciousness. So, someone can become unconscious because
of malaria. So, that is why we need to treat them promptly.
So some of these things, once we treat promptly we will
avoid death especially in children and pregnant women. Now, for pregnant women
it affects the placenta that link the baby.
For the woman it causes anaemia (shortage of blood). And once there is
shortage of blood it causes, of course it can lead you to death because there
is poor blood supply to the person and to the baby. So, it can lead to the
death of the mother. It can lead to the death of the baby as well.
Now, it can also cause low birth weight for the baby. Now it
can also cause death of the baby. The woman will pregnant while delivering the
baby will die in the womb. Those are the challenges we don’t want to happen;
pregnant women and children.
Can you throw more light on what
possible ways this malaria can be prevented?
We can prevent malaria simple, first of all by making sure
our environment is clean. By making sure that there is no breeding ground for
mosquito by clearing the buses around us. By making sure there is no stagnant
waters around us which a breeding ground for mosquitoes. When we successfully
done that we need to ensure that our houses are screened. That is our windows
and doors are screened with net that prevent mosquitoes from entering it. Then
I said earlier we can prevent malaria by using mosquito net. What they called
the Long Lasting Treated Insecticide net. Then we need to sleep inside the
mosquito net every night consistently. That way will be preventive to malaria.
On your inception to office as the
State Programme Manager on Malaria Elimination in the State, what is your
office doing to prevent malaria in Bayelsa state?
Thank you very much. Since we resumed office we have taking
a lot of drastic measures to prevent malaria in the state. One of the things we
have been doing currently, we are ensuring that people are well enlightened
about the issues surrounding malaria; about the burden of malaria is a big
issue. It is causing about the death of over four hundred thousand (400,000)
people. So, we have gone round to about 40 communities now, down to the
villages to insecticide them and to have community meetings with these
communities to know about using mosquito nets and clearing their environment as
well as making sure they sleep inside mosquito net every time to prevent
malaria and telling them the dangers about it. We have also in the past period
distributed about 18,600 mosquito nets to various communities especially
pregnant women and under five years of age children. We have done that within
the period in June, July and December during the Maternal and Child Health Week
in last year.
For this year, we intend to distribute more nets. But,
beyond the distributing the nets what we are going to do is we are going to
send trained workers into their communities for people who own these nets.
Because most people own these nets and they are not using it. So, we are going
to train people to go into the communities to ask them if they are using the
net. And if they are not using the nets they should teach them more on why they
need to use it and support them to hang these nets as well as to use these
nets. So, those are the things that we have been doing. Take for instance for
this 2018 was malaria day that is coming up on Wednesday. Now, we have
created…………….competition as you sees in my office. We have lot of entries. We
have received over seventy entries from about twenty (20) schools. Now, the
essence of that is that we are training the younger ones to learn issues about
malaria and the issues on the prevention and treatment to interpret it in their
own ways.
So, you have people building houses, building native houses,
molding houses, drawing pictures showing how to prevent malaria; showing the
problems that can result from malaria. So, they are there educated. So, they
well informed. So, they will pass this message to their parents, to their
sisters, to their brothers and they will spread the message. On other thing we
have done is that we have done a workshop for media personnel so that they have
the capacity to disseminate key malaria messages. So, they are able to reach
out to wider audiences. So, when they now have that capacity they are able to
disseminate the right key malaria message to their audience. The audience of
the media is very enormous and very broad. So, that is why we are able to train
them. And we are happy by the feedback we are getting because they are now
comfortable in talking about the issues surrounding malaria especially mosquito
to the use of mosquito net and debunking the reasons why people don’t use those
nets.
Along the line, what are your
challenges and way forward?
Government is doing a whole lot and has been doing alone.
But you see the resources of government are not infinite. So, those are the
regular challenges of funding. But one of the challenges is that we want
people, individuals, and corporate bodies to involve in the fight against the
elimination of malaria. We want the people to see the battle against malaria as
a collective responsibility. It is not a fight to the Ministry of Health or the
Commissioner of Health alone. To eliminate malaria in Bayelsa state involves
every one of us, like the Theme for our year says “Together we can if we are
ready to beat malaria”. So, Theme is if we are ready to beat malaria together
we can. So, if we are ready every one of us needs to play our part. We want
every individual to play his or her own part.
Apart from sleeping in insecticide
treated mosquito net every night, what other measures can you suggest to
eliminate malaria perfectly within Bayelsa state vicinity?
There are other measures we can take to eliminate malaria. They
are very expensive. One of them is what we call it indoor room spraying on the
wall of houses. But is very capital intensive project that you don’t just do it
in one local government. We need to do it in a minimum of two, three local
government. It is capital intensive. We also have other things like lab.
Another very key aspect of preventing malaria is that the human own is the
reservoir of the parasite.
So, if everybody that has malaria goes for prompt testing
and treatment and you treat adequately, then the concentration of the parasite
will be reduce. So, even if mosquito bites you, if you don’t have malaria, you
will not take up malaria for your body to infect another person. One of the key
things is that people must test and treat themselves adequately and eradicate
malaria from their system so that you don’t transmit through the mosquito bite
to another person.
What is your last word?
My last word to everyone is that we must take responsibility
for our health. So, malaria is a preventative disease, it is a treatable
disease and a curable disease. So, we should always ensure that we do the
things that will help prevent malaria. And together every one of us can beat
and make Bayelsa state Malaria free. One, by sleeping inside the Long Lasting Insecticide
Treated Net; Test before treatment and also treat with the right drugs, go to a
proper place to treat when you think you have malaria and also every pregnant
woman must register for Anti-natal so that they give them the right drugs to
prevent malaria.
But everyone be ready to beat malaria. We are ready to
eliminate malaria in Bayelsa state. So, everyone should beat malaria. And it is
the burden of the Honourable Commissioner of Health Prof. Ebitimi Tula Etebu
who is fighting serious to ensure that everything turn around in the health
system of Bayelsa state. So, he is doing everything he can to make sure that we
eradicate malaria in Bayelsa state.
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