The wife of the Oyo State Governor, Mrs Florence Ajimobi, has reaffirmed her commitment to supporting efforts aimed at eradicating malaria in the state.
Ajimobi gave the assurance in Ibadan on Wednesday when she received members of the Malaria Action Plan team on a courtesy visit, pledging her support for the distribution of insecticide-treated mosquito nets to vulnerable residents across the state.
Recalling her involvement in the previous campaign, she said she had worked to ensure that families across Oyo State had access to treated mosquito nets following her investiture as the state’s Net Ambassador in 2013.
“After my investiture as Net Ambassador in the state in 2013, I ensured that each family in the state collected two treated mosquito nets,” Ajimobi said.
She explained that malaria remained a major threat to productivity, stressing that individuals and communities affected by the disease could not perform at their optimum capacity.
“A malaria-infested society or person cannot produce at an optimum level. Therefore, the higher the malaria prevalence, the lower the productivity of an individual or a society. And this is not good for our society,” she added.
Ajimobi also highlighted the devastating consequences of malaria, noting that its impact went beyond deaths recorded among pregnant women, nursing mothers, infants and children.
According to her, complications arising from the disease could lead to serious health challenges, including blindness, paralysis and convulsion, making sustained prevention and public awareness crucial to reducing its prevalence.
She assured the Malaria Action Plan team of her maximum support for the new distribution exercise and expressed her readiness to collaborate with relevant stakeholders to ensure that the nets reached those who needed them most.
Ajimobi further disclosed that wives of local government caretaker chairmen would be encouraged to join the campaign as Net Ambassadors in their respective jurisdictions, with a view to strengthening grassroots mobilisation and awareness.
Earlier, the leader of the Malaria Action Plan team, Mr Godwin Aidenagbon, said the exercise was designed to replace mosquito nets distributed in 2013, which he noted would no longer provide the expected level of protection.
He explained that the Federal Government, in partnership with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), was working to reduce the incidence of malaria in Nigeria through the replacement and distribution of treated nets to vulnerable populations.
According to Aidenagbon, about 4.3 million treated mosquito nets would be distributed across Oyo State as part of the exercise.
He appealed to Ajimobi to lend her influence to the campaign by supporting public awareness and mobilisation efforts, particularly encouraging residents to come forward to collect and properly use the treated nets.
Aidenagbon also urged the governor’s wife to publicly endorse the nets as an effective tool in the fight against malaria and help strengthen confidence in their use among residents.
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