The Kwara State government has kicked-off the state Maternal, New Born and Child Health week to address health needs of pregnant women and nursing mothers in the state.

Addressing pregnant women and nursing mothers at the Adewole Estate Cottage Hospital in Ilorin, the Chairman, Kwara State Primary Health Care Development Agency (KWPHCDA), Dr. Asiat Ayinke Saka, said the programme would help  to prevent diseases among pregnant women and children and ultimately reduce maternal mortality rate.

Dr. Saka, who said the programme was going on simultaneously across the 16 local government areas of the state, added that the state government decided to choose the preventive method of treating pregnant women and children because it was cheaper and more effective.

She said the exercise was a domestication of what Federal Government introduced for the states long time ago.

She also said that treatment and provision of drugs were free in programme, while advising pregnant women and nursing mothers to go to the nearest hospitals where doctors would test them for ailment and give them drugs free of charge.

The chairman said that doctors would also go round the state to ensure that those who have one ailment or the other were given necessary drugs.

She said that the programme would also help discourage self medication among people at the grass roots, adding that mothers would be taken care of from pregnancy till child birth.

She said that mother and child would also be taken care of after birth free of charge until five years.

Many beneficiaries of the prgramme were also examined and enlightened on the need to visit hospital regularly, personal hygiene, among others.