How we use chemotherapy strategy to reduce malaria cases from 70-20 percent

By Samuel Luka

The Executive Chairman of the Bauchi State Agency for the Control of HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Dr. Adamu Umar Sambo has disclosed that the rate of malaria cases have reduced to 20 from 70 percent in the state.

Speaking on Thursday, Sambo said the feat was attained following the assumption of Bala Mohammed as Governor of Bauchi nearly six years ago.

According to him, the Agency has taken advantage of the Governor's commitment to healthcare delivery to fight malaria scourge across the state through the use of Seasonal Malaria Chemotherapy (SMC) programme.

SMC is a strategy to prevent malaria in young children by giving them anti-malarial drugs during the peak malaria transmission season, typically the rainy season.

The BACATMA Chairman further announced the state government has procured about 5 million insecticidal treated mosquito nets for distribution to households in 2026.

"When it comes to malaria prevention, you are aware of the SMC that just concluded this month, it started over five years after the coming of His Excellency", Dr Sambo said.

He recalled that, to execute the SMC program, over 22,000 workers were employed to work on adhoc bases for five months to distribute drugs for children below the age of five years, in order to prevent them from having malaria and reduce the scourge.

"This approach has assisted greatly in reducing malaria among the children from over 70 to less than 20 percent", he said.

Dr. Sambo, who mentioned that the target is to reach out to 2 million children, explained that the agency has achieved over 97 percent of the target.

The BACATMA Chairman who described the SMC program as capital intensive, stressed that from June to October, the agency has been going round for at least minimum of four days, and two days mop-up monitoring to ensure that every nook and cranny of the state is covered.

He stated that the Governor has mandated the agency to prepare its campaign strategy for mosquito net distribution for 2026, adding that close to 5 million Insecticidal treated mosquito nets have been procured for distribution to households.

"The distribution was supposed to be on four year bases, but His Excellency said we can not wait that long".

He said, seeing that the last nets distribution took place in 2023, the government felt it should be done in 2026, allowing only a 3 years gap in order not to protect the citizens from mosquito bites which transmit malaria.

He said test kits and drugs for malaria have been provided in various health centers for children to access free of charge.

Dr. Sambo commended Governor Bala Mohammed for adequately equipping the Agency and health facilities across the state to provide access to timely and quality healthcare services.

He added that governor Mohammed has revitalised the agency, refurbished its vehicles, carry out massive renovation of the office accommodation, among others