After the official launch of the national campaign to combat seasonal malaria on Thursday, in the Center region, expected to affect nearly 3 million children aged 3 to 59 months, the Minister of Health, Robert Lucien Jean Claude Kargougou, went to Ziniaré (Plateau-central) on Friday to immerse himself in the progress of the said campaign and encourage health workers on the ground.
According to the Minister of Health and Public Hygiene, Robert Lucien Jean Claude Kargougou, chemo prevention of seasonal malaria consists of administering drugs to children aged 3 to 59 months over three days.
Mr. Kargougou said he came to the Health and Social Promotion Center (CSPS) of Oubriyaoghin, in the health district of Ziniaré, to see how the campaign was going and to encourage health workers on the ground.
The Minister of Health, who spoke on Friday in the capital of the Central Plateau region, explained that the administration of medicines helps protect the future builders of the country against malaria.
For him, the fight against malaria is carried out at the end-to-end community level by community-based health workers who are well trained to carry out this campaign.
For him, agents carry out at home level the identification of the children concerned and the screening of malnourished children.
‘On the first day, it is an administration supervised by the community-based health worker himself and for the second and third day, it is the mothers or caregivers who are responsible for administering the medicines,’ said.
Robert Lucien Jean Claude Kargougou highlighted the testimonies of a mother of children in the village of Oubriyaoghin.
Listening to her, Ms. Georgette Tiendrébéogo stressed that once the medications are administered, their children no longer have malaria and have a good appetite.
The head nurse of Oubriyaoghin station, Brice Abdoulaye Adjialabou, first presented the situation of the malaria chemo prevention campaign in his health center.
M Adjialabou then raised complaints relating, among other things, to logistics, infrastructure, human resources, the cold chain, etc. to the Minister of Health.
Mr. Kargougou promised to resolve them as quickly as possible for the happiness of the population.
After Ziniaré, the press was deported on Saturday September 16, 2023 to the commune of Manga (Centre-South) precisely to the CSPS of Sakuilga for the same cause.
In this Tempéléga village under the CSPS of Sakuilga, there was also the question of taking medication and the detection of malnourished children, in the eyes of the men and women of the media.
According to Dr Sawadogo, teams of community distributors visit households, public places, groups of people, camps for displaced people, to offer medicines to children.
According to him, this campaign aims to maintain effective doses in their blood to prevent these children from developing malaria during the peak period
Source: Burkina Information Agency
