The Upper East Regional Directorate of the Ghana Health Service(GHS) will from Saturday, July 25 to Friday, July 31, 2020, will undertake the Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention (SMC) exercise with a mass administration of anti-malaria drug to children in the region.
A total of 244,199 children between the ages of three (3) to 59 months are expected to be administered with sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) plus amodiaquine (AQ) by health personnel to the beneficiary children in 1,425 communities.
Upper East Regional Director of GHS,Dr. Winfred Ofosu said this at a stakeholders’ meeting organized by the GHS and the National Malaria Control Programme in Bolgatanga.
Dr. Ofosu said, the objective of the exercise was to maintain the therapeutic anti-malarial drug concentrations in the blood of the beneficiary children throughout the period of greatest malarial risk.
He emphasized that, the SMC intervention has been recommended by the World Health Organization(WHO) to be effective, cost-effective, well tolerated and feasible to reducing malaria mortality.
He cautioned that, children with chronic illness, HIV positive, severe malaria and children allergic to either drug are strongly advised not to take part in the exercise.
Dr. Ofosu reiterated that, all health workers assigned for the exercise shall strictly observe the Covid-19 protocols, adding that, Covid-19 patients and contacts of the GHS are excluded from the exercise.
Source:|A1radioonline.com|101.1MHZ|Frederick Yinbil|Ghana
