Date: 2019-08-31

KWARA State Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq on Friday flagged a statewide campaign to curtail malaria, calling it one of the first fruits of his early interventions in the health sector where he recently paid N232m counterpart funds.

The campaign, named Malaria-Free-Kwara, qualifies Kwarans to access free malaria treatments in the health centres near them in the state.

"One of the interventions we have made in the health sector was to pay N82m (out of the total N232million) counterpart funds to show commitment to be involved in the global anti-malaria campaign led by the Roll-Back-Malaria Partnership, a donors-driven initiative to stamp out the menace of malaria in the world, especially in our country Nigeria," he said at the official launch of the Malaria-Free-Kwara in Ilorin, the state capital.

"The Malaria-Free-Kwara we are launching this morning is a product of that timely intervention, which is to complement the humanitarian efforts of the Roll-Back-Malaria Partnership. No serious government, especially in Nigeria, should trivialise the global campaign against malaria. In 2018 alone, Nigeria recorded 100million malaria cases with at least 300,000 deaths resulting from such cases. Such shameful data contributed to our recurring low rating in global development indices," he said.

AbdulRazaq, who is currently on the entourage of President Muhammadu Buhari to Japan, was represented at the event by the Secretary to the State Government, Dr Saba Jibril.

"As I flag off the Malaria Free Kwara campaign for 2019, I request all Kwarans and caregivers in the state to visit the nearest health facility to them to access this service in the interest of everyone and overall well-being of our state," he said.