Musdapha Ilo, Maiduguri

Borno State has emerged best performing state in the eradication of Malaria in the northeastern zone of the country and fourth overall in Nigeria.

The commissioner for Health, Salma Anas Kolo, disclosed this while addressing the press at an occasion marking the World Malaria Day on Friday.

Kolo said over the last one year, the state has recorded 519 deaths from 406,000 reported cases of malaria, but added that cases of the disease had reduced drastically due to measures put in place by the state government.

“Malaria is a life threatening disease which affects the blood system, which in turn affects the red blood cell, as such our efforts also is to provide opportunity for donor partners to share and compliment each other as well as for our country to learn from each other.”

“We have also worked towards establishing communications chains with our community so as to be able to tell the community about malaria, its symptoms, prevention and cure,” she said.

The commissioner explained that malaria also affects the kidney, which may have been responsible for Borno having a high rate of kidney failure.

Anas Kolo, who spoke on some of the efforts of the state government to eradicate the disease, said it has renewed partnership with donor agencies, invested in the procurement of anti-malaria drugs, and procured rapid diagnostic test.

She also disclosed that the state has invested in capacity building with the training of 1,000 health providers and banbed the use of Chloroquine in health centres across the state.