FCT community begs for Primary Healthcare Centre

Mr Dauda Tanko, the Acting traditional leader of Wumba Community in Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC), FCT, has appealed to the Federal Government to establish a functional Primary Healthcare Centre (PHC) in the area.

Tanko made the appeal during the inauguration of “Combat Malaria Project” organised by the Nation First Foundation, an NGO, in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH) on Saturday in Abuja.

Tanko said: “The incidence of malaria in the community is increasing alarmingly.

“We don’t have a functional primary healthcare centre in the community; the community is using a small facility donated by a philanthropist.

“This facility constructed by the philanthropist has contributed to slightly reduce malaria cases here(Wumba).’’

The community leader also said there was no public school in the area.

“It is very difficult for our children to go to the nearest public school within Apo area.

“We need government to help us ameliorate these challenges.

“We have been complaining to the AMAC chairman on these challenges of not having a PHC, access road and better waste management system but there has not been any response.

“It appears as if the government does not recognise us anymore and my people are not happy for that,’’ he said.

He commended the foundation for the initiative and pledged the community’s commitment to sustain the tempo to minimise malaria and other diseases in the area.

Mr Elidad Onianwa, the Country Director, Nation First Foundation, said the rate of malaria at Wumba had gone very high and that was why the foundation chose to inaugurate the project in the community.

According to him, about 85 per cent of the community’s population had presented with malaria cases.

“All we can do as an intervention is to collectively combat malaria; we have to reduce malaria in Wumba community to the barest minimum,’’ he said.

Onianwa said the foundation had sensitised the community on hygiene, importance of sleeping under mosquito nets and need to test for malaria before treatment whenever they noticed any symptoms of the ailment.

The country director also said that the foundation sensitised the community on the dangers of malaria, offers free medical testing and treatment for malaria, evacuates waste and distributes insecticides treated nets.

Also, Ms Ogar Paschal, Scientific Officer, Integrated Vector Management, National Malaria Elimination Programme, said that environmental sanitation is the key strategy for malaria control that an individual can adopt.

She emphasised the need for the community to do away with stagnant water, grasses and other unhygienic life styles to prevent mosquitoes which cause malaria, from breeding.

Paschal said the FMoH through the National Malaria Elimination Programme has been working on other interventions toward eliminating malaria in the country.

According to her, the interventions include indoor residual spraying, vector surveillance and larvae source management.