By Muazu Shedrack | Program Officer
Our dear donor,
Warm greetings from Physicians for Social Justice, PSJ.
We use this quarterly report to highlight the positive impact your donations are making in the lives of communities we serve. With your support, our team conducted malaria mobile clinic outreach in Adogo community, a remote village located deep into the savanna grassland of rural Mashegu on October 10, 2020. It took the mobile health team about 3 hours to travel from our base in Kontagora to the village as we navigated through rough terrain of washed-out unpaved roads and bushpaths.
The mobile clinic outreach to Adogo community brought life-saving clinical services to the doorsteps of rural villagers including diagnosis and treatment malaria-in-pregnancy and for children under-five, administration of routine drugs (multivitamins) for pregnant women, post-natal care and health education, treatment of other infectious diseases including, typhoid, diarrhoea etc, as well as COVID-19 sensitization and risk communication.
Results of the outreach showed 71 of 190 pregnant women wh0 presented at the mobile clinic were diagnosed malaria positive using malaria rapid test kit test and treated for malaria while 119 received essential routine multivitamins. 223 children under-five including 49 neonates were diagnosed and treated for malaria, while 18 were treated for diarrhea. Over 400 caregivers mostly women also received health education on malaria control measures they can undertake to rid the surroundings of their households of malaria vector (mosquitoes) breeding sites. Caegivers in the community expressed joy at the opportunity of the visit. “Your visit to our community today with your team of doctors and nurses has brought joy and happiness to my household. My 4-year-old son who has been running temperature (fever) since the past 2 days was treated at no cost by the doctor. They tested him and gave us two different medicines. The doctor assured me that the medicine will make him well again”, said Bilkisu, a caregiver and resident of Adogo village, who expressed immense gratitude for the outreach.
These malaria outreach activities are being implemented against the background of the high malaria transmission currently going on especially in rural communities as the rainy season reaches its peak and people in these rural communities do not have access to effective malaria prevention measures such as long-lasting insecticide treated nets. Based on Niger State Malaria Survey of 2019, rural Mashegu which is just one of the 25 LGAs of Niger State, contributes 12% of the total malaria mortality burden in the entire state.
This mobile clinic outreach stood out among others we conducted of recent because it also coincided with the handing-over ceremony to the community, of the primary health care facility, newly refurbished by PSJ. For over six years, the clinic which was the only health facility in the community was left in a dilapidated condition; a large portion of the facility’s roof had been torn apart by rainstorm, and there were leakages all over the rest of the facility’s building leading to destruction of furniture and medical equipment. The sanitary condition of the facility deteriorated and eventually lead to the abandonment of the facility by both health personnel and community members, until Physicians for Social Justice (PSJ) took the initiative to refurbish the PHC facility and also donated basic medical equipment to the PHC facility with support of our donors.
On behalf of the Adogo community and all other communities we serve, Physicians for Social Justice is most profoundly grateful to all our donors especially those who donated to us via the globalgiving platform for making our work impactful in the lives of the communities we serve. Your donations have enabled us reach communities in the remotest of locations to provide life-saving medical services especially malaria treatment, care and prevention services. Thank you for all your generosity.
By Nnaji Kenneth | Project Officer
By Nnaji Kenneth | Project Officer
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