Preventing Childhood Malaria Deaths in Mashegu

Tungan Habu is a rural community that suffers chronic social neglect ranging from inadequate healthcare services to poor water and sanitation facilities. The advent of Covid-19 in year 2020, has made the living condition of the people worse as local authorities grapple with the socioeconomic hardship that the pandemic brought with it.  Furthermore, the community also hosts hundreds of Internally Displace Persons (IDPs) who fled their own communities and villages due to attacks by armed bandits; Frequent abductions and violent attacks on roads leading to the villages and communities like Tunga Habu have made it nearly impossible for government/partners supply trucks from making rounds to supply essential medicines and other health commodities to health facilities especially in these rural communities.

 According to reports from the local primary health care authority, Tungan Habu ranks as high risk due to her high malaria burden especially among infants, young children and pregnant women.

This mobile clinic outreach which happened in early August 2021 at Tungan Habu was prompted by community elders in the community asking Physicians for Social Justice (PSJ) to assist their community and alleviate their suffering by providing medical relief and aid to their vulnerable populations of women, children and elderly and young.

With support donors through GlobalGiving Foundation, PSJ partnered with the community stakeholders to conduct an integrated Mobile Clinic Outreach where their vulnerable populations including pregnant women and children under 5 (U5) were provided with free life-saving medical services including; Free malaria testing and treatment and provision of multivitamins for pregnant/lactating mothers, as well as other primary health care services such as free diagnosis and treatment of common ailments and infectious diseases such as typhoid, ulcers, respiratory tract infections, etc.

For the malaria component of the integrated outreach, a total of 289 persons were tested including 113 children-under-five, 92 pregnant women, 66 non-pregnant women and 18 men were tested for malaria. 179 persons including 79 children-under five, 54 pregnant women, 39 non-pregnant women and 7 men tested positive for malaria and were all treated free of charge, thanks to the generous donations from you our donors.

The community beneficiaries were full of gratitude to our GlobalGiving donors for their generous donations and which made the outreach possible.

Since our last report, our team has conducted two outreaches in rural Kaboji as part of our renewed effort and strategic goal to achieve a malaria parasite prevalence of less than 10% and reduce mortality attributable to malaria to less than 50 deaths per 1000 live births by 2025.

This particular project update once again showcases the impact of donor support towards the implementation of Preventing Childhood Malaria Deaths in rural Mashegu, which is a high burden malaria zone in rural Niger State. On behalf of these communities we serve, Physicians for Social Justice, PSJ, particularly grateful to our donors for making these two outreaches possible. All the anti-malarial medicines and insecticide treated nets used during the two outreaches were procured with donations we received entirely from our donors on GlobalGiving.

For the two outreaches, 68 pregnant women received Intermittent Preventive Treatment of malaria (IPT) as recommended by World Health Organization. For most of these women, this was the first time they had the opportunity to receive IPT, which is a therapeutic course of antimalarial medicine given to pregnant women, regardless of whether the recipient is infected with malaria.

For 32year old Halima, an expectant mother of 3, who was already in her second trimester of her fourth pregnancy, she was among the beneficiaries who received her Intermittent Preventive Treatment of malaria (IPT), the outreach could not have come at a better time than when the team visited her village. She narrated to the team how she almost lost her third baby who was born pre-term, due to severe episode on malaria-in-pregnancy she experienced then. She was full of praise to our outreach team for visiting her village to provide IPT and insecticidal nets as well. “Two years ago, I experienced severe fever with chills, my husband took me to the General Hospital in the city (a journey of over 2 hours). The doctor said I had malaria-in-pregnancy. I went into labour before my due date and eventually delivered my baby just before 8 months of pregnancy. I didn’t know my baby would survive. Your visit today to give this malaria medicine is a thing of joy for me and all pregnant mothers in this village. Thank you for looking after the poor and vulnerable”, said Halima, who was full of praise for our team and our donors.

Also using malaria rapid test kit, 135 children under-five children were diagnosed malaria positive and also received full does of anti-malaria treatment.

 Once again, on behalf of these communities, PSJ is most profoundly grateful to all our donors for your generosity, and for providing the resources to make this outreaches reality. Thank you.