Nova Scotia Sierra Leone Programme has embarked on sensitization and environmental cleaning exercise under the Global Fund Project for Community Sensitization on malaria in various communities in the Kenema district.
Speaking to the press at (How For Do) Mattoe lorry park in Kenema city where members of the Motor Drivers and Transport Workers Union (MDTWU) where engaged in environmental cleaning exercise, the Programme Manager Nova Scotia/Sierra Leone John S. Kamara told his audience that Nova Scotia is presently undertaking the community sensitization and environmental cleaning exercise in their operational areas in the country which includes Maneki, Kono, Makeni, Bo, Kenema and Kailahun districts.
Sadly, it is an extremely common refrain across Sierra Leone, where malaria is rife in both rural and urban areas. Every year tens of thousands of young children contract malaria here. Many of them do not survive – contributing to the highest child mortality rate in the world. He says the decades of war and underdevelopment have also created fertile breeding grounds for the malaria-carrying mosquito – from stagnant water sources in rural villages to sewage-choked canals cutting straight through the poorest parts of the capital and in the provinces.
He says environmental cleaning is one of the pivotal aspects in preventing malaria.
Delivering his statement at the General Training and Community Sensitization meeting held at the ‘How For Do lorry park’. On the use of the bed Insecticide Treatment net the Assistant Regional Coordinator Nova Scotia Sierra Leone Moseray S. Fofanah disclosed that in Kenema city they have not only engaged the drivers union in the city, but have also engaged the women on Intermittent Preventive Treatment for pregnant women, the Market women at Maxwell Khobe street the Nyandeyama community at Abdulatif Junior Secondary school.
He explained that there are some small signs of progress. Along with greater access to the latest treatment, there is also an increasing emphasis on prevention, particularly on the provision of insecticide-treated bed nets.
Under a UNICEF-sponsored program, nurses across Sierra Leone are handing out free nets to pregnant women and children under five – the two groups most at risk. Often regarded as the first line of defence against malaria, bed nets drastically reduce the risk of contracting the disease. It is also a remarkably cost-effective program, since each net lasts for up to three years. Of course, bed nets are only part of the answer. They can reduce malaria but not eliminate it, especially in a poverty-stricken country like Sierra Leone, which cannot afford the vast sums needed to tackle the real sources of the disease – such as dirty water.
In his contribution to the audience the Regional Secretary General of the Motor Drivers and General Transport Workers Union Eastern Region Kenema branch Cyril B.Alie expressed thanks and appreciation to Nova Scotia adding the sensitization is not only good for drivers but for the general public. He called on participants to continue implementing the ideas they are gaining in the sensitization. Similar program is going on in other part of the country.
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