ARD conducts free medical outreach programme to combat disease in Sokoto

dimeji akinloye

April 24, 2017 10:29 AM

The Vice President of the Association said that the programme would be extended to all the 23 local governments of the state.

Children undergoing vaccination

The Association of Resident Doctors (ARD),

The Vice President of the Association, Dr Faruk Umar disclosed this to newsmen in Sokoto on Saturday.

Umar said: "The outreach is meant to provide free medical and advocacy services in order to reduce the risk of transmission of the disease."

He said that the programme would be extended to all the 23 local governments of the state, “until when the disease is totally eradicated.

“We are impressed with the efforts so far made by the state Ministry of Health, particularly the Commissioner for Health, Dr Balarabe Kakale, the Nigerian Army and the international Non Governmental Organization, Medicines Sans Frontiers or Doctors Without Borders.

”This is because the number of cases have across the state had drastically reduced in the past few days.”

Umar, however, called on the people of the state to always report suspected cases to the hospitals early.

”If they feel any symptom of the disease they should rush to the hospitals. Most of the patients who lost their lives were brought to the hospital after the disease had reached a chronic stage,” Umar, said.

Also speaking, the Secretary of the Association, Dr. Ibrahim Abubakar, said that the gesture was aimed at complementing the efforts of the state government to ”totally bring the meningitis epidemic under control”.

dimeji akinloye