THE Carter Centre (TCC) in collaboration with the Plateau State Government, have organised a 2-day Strategic Planning Meeting to review TCC Assisted NTDs Programmes 2022 by mainstreaming Schisto/STH study and plans for 2023 to treat school children enrolled in the programme in the nine (9) LGAs.
The TCC Programme Director of Nasarawa, Plateau and Eboyi States, Dr. Abel Eigege, disclosed this recently, while in an interview with journalists shortly after the opening ceremony of the two-day strategic planning meeting, held at the conference hall of Nigerian Bible Translation Board (NBTT) Jos, Plateau State.
He said, “the purpose of the meeting is to review the successes and the challenges we have had. We are now looking at strategies on how to overcome those challenges. What we are doing now is that, Schistosomiiasis before now has been a control programme which will take a very long time for it to be eliminated.
“It is something that needs intersectorial collaboration if we are really going to succeed in health, education, water and sanitation. So, as I said, the purpose of this strategy here is, what do we do? as funding for this programme is reducing? Which aspect can government do?
“So, the strategy is just to see how we can mainstream STH and Schisto so that, even if funding from some donors cease, the government can continue to support it. Also, the people of Nigeria can continue to support it too. An excellent example is our collaboration with PTA of schools”.
“As I mentioned to them, Nigeria is not poor. If we really know our priority, direct our priority or priorities to those resources, to these challenges because Nigeria is a rich country. We just pray that our hands would be on deck, all of us to contribute to sail and have new areas that we can help when the government tells us where they need help for us to tell our principal”, Eigege assured.
The Programme Director, however, disclosed that out of the thirty-six states including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), only Nasarawa and Plateau States have elliminated guinea womb, river blindness and interrupted the transmission of Lymphatic Filarasis (LF) as public health issues with the support of The Carter Centre (TCC).
While speaking shortly after the day-2 of Strategic Planning Meeting, Plateau State Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) Coordinator, Philemon Dagwa, said, “now, we are treating diseases we call schistomiiasis (Bilhaziya in Hausa) and distributing deworming drugs to children from 5 to 14 years old when we carried out such meetings.
“Secondly, there are some STH that we have started mainstreaming, which means transferring power from Partners to the Government. We have started piloting that in Bassa Local Government last year and it was a successful one. Now, we are adding eight (8) LGAs to make it nine (9) out of the 17 LGAs.
“The remaining eight (8) LGAs will still do the normal activities; the training and the distribution of drugs is going to be sponsored by The Carter Centre. For the other enrolled nine (9), there will be no sponsorship completely. The government will take over and basically, we only treat in schools and also use CDD (Community Directed Distributors)”, Dagwa highlighted.
On his part, the state TCC Data Manager, Bulus Mancha, said, the strategic planning meeting was an annual meeting aimed at strategizing and organising, planning and focusing on the programme activities that we are going to have for the year, hence engaging stakeholders from the Ministry of Health, Education (SUBEB) and other stakeholders that were relevant to NTDs programme.
Responding, the Executive Chairman of Plateau State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), Professor Mathew Sule, thanked the TCC/PLSG for the interventions to create an enabling environment for pupils and teachers to study well and promised to work together with them to achieve success.
Meanwhile, Governor Simon Bako Lalong of Plateau State, represented by the Commissioner of Health, Dr. Nimkong Lar Ndam, through the State Director, Public Health, Dr. Burna Mansok Mafwalla, appreciated TCC for being technically supportive and instrumental in collaboration with the ministry to deal with NTDs in the state.
There were presentations of awards to the three best Social Mobilization Officers (SMOs) where Mr. Ritji Peter Adamu, from Kanke LGA emerged first (1st), followed by Mr. Sunday Innocent of Bassa LGA who came second (2nd), while Dashe D. Mathew came third (3rd) respectively. Participants were State Integrated Health Team (SIHT), Local Integrated Health Team Leaders (LIHTL) as well as stakeholders from Ministries of Health, Education and Sanitation in that order.
