KWARA Stae Commissioner forHealth, Alhaji Kayode Issa, has said that river blindness is a disease that mostly affect poor rural people living near rivers or streams.Speaking at a one-day advocacy meeting with stakeholders in the administration of local councils in Ilorin recently, the commissioner said the disease was a major cause of blindness in Kwara State, adding that all the 16 local government areas were known to be endemic to the disease.He, therefore, urged chairmen in the 16 local government areas of the state to make budgetary provision for the control of river blindness and recruitment of medical doctors to work in the 350 Primary Health Care ( PHC) centres in the state.He solicited for a yearly release of a sum not less than N100,000 per council to achieve the elimination goal.Ahaji Issa said the appeal was imperative in order to ensure qualitative healthcare delivery at the grassroots.The commissioner, who lamented that the state has over 350 PHC, added that only four medical doctors are in the employment of four local government areas, noting that this was not acceptable.Issa, who noted that the councils needed to key into the state government's policy on health, re-iterated Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed has resolved that no resident would trek more than 500 metres to get access to health facilities.The commissioner said it was not enough to provide health centres and equipments, adding that adequate accommodation must be provided for the doctors and auxilliary staffs.As partners, he said the councils should patronise the Essential Drug Project of his ministry, assuring them of genuine drugs at reduced cost.On river blindness, the health commissioner hinged control activities on mass distribution of Ivercetin which started in the 1990's using the Community Directed Treatment with Ivermectin( CDTI) strategy.He said it involved desolving power to the community to own the programme and participate fully in the distribution of the tablets, making sure every community member was treated.According to him,' the control programme through mass dsitribution of free tablets of Ivermectin and Albendazole by the local government area supervisors and community direct distributors (CDD) will need the support of the local government area managements in the provision of logistics/financial assistance to both the local government staffs supervisors for effective monitoring and supervision and the CDDs for dsitribution of tablets.
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