Tony Okafor, Awka
The Anambra State Government has said that no fewer than six million residents in the state risk river blindness and other Neglected Tropical Diseases( NTDs).
The state’s Commissioner for Health,Dr Afam Obidike stated this in Awka, the Anambra State capital on Thursday at
a press conference to mark the 2023 World NTDs Day.
This year’s commemoration has the theme – ‘Act Now, Act Together, Invest in Elimination of Neglected Tropical Diseases’.
The Commissioner identified onchocerciasis known as river blindness, lymphatic filariasis also known as elephantiasis, schistosomiasis and soil transmitted helminthiasis (STH), as the NTDs endemic in Anambra State.
He said the state government in partnership with the Carter Centre had treated over 4.7 million persons of the four major Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs), in the state in 2022.
He described NTDs as preventable communicable diseases prevalent in areas with poor sanitation, inadequate safe water supply and sub-standard housing conditions.
According to him, the diseases were considered neglected because they enjoy little funding, and almost absent from the global health agenda and are associated with stigma and social exclusion.
Obidike said, “Over six million individuals in the state are at risk of being infected with one or more types of NTDs and 80 per cent are targeted annually to recieved preventive chemotherapy against the diseases.
“In 2020, 1.2 million persons were treated, 3.1 million persons were treated in 2021 and a total of 4,768,342 persons were treated in 2022.
“In partnership with the Carter Centre, 2,867 health workers were trained in 2022, on the detection, treatment, management and prevention of NTDs. Today every prevailing NTDs in the state is currently receiving public health attention.
The Commissioner said the state governor, Prof Chukwuma Soludo’s administration invested in NTDs programmes to scale up sensitisation in endemic communities.
He urged residents to support government’s efforts by sleeping under treated mosquito net, reporting cases of elephantiasis to nearest health centre and assist in searching of fast flowing rivers for blackfly control.
Also speaking, Mrs Egeonu Attamah-Isiani, Anambra state Programme Officer, the Carter Centre, said the centre had been partnering the state since 1995 to control and eliminate NTDs.
She said,”We have been providing technical and financial support to the state, facilitate capacity building, drugs provision and distribution to interrupt NTDs transmission.”
In his remarks, Prof. Dennis Aribodor of Parasitology and Public Health Society of Nigeria, urged the state government to invest and partner with the society in the area of research and data gathering on NTDs.
