Ondo State Primary Healthcare Officers on Tuesday 19th January, 2021 paid a courtesy call on the leadership of Ondo Ekimogun Youth Congress to inform and seek collaboration towards prevention and control of Elephantiasis and Riverblindness.

The meeting which was held at the boardroom of the Oba Adesanoye Civic Center in Ondo City had in attendance Comrade Sola Akinbinu & Comrade Kenneth Adegeye, the Coordinator I & Coordinator II respectively in company of other youths stakeholders who were on ground to receive the health officers.

While speaking Mr Ilemobayo Jacob, Ondo State Neglected Tropical Diseases(NTDs) Officer thanked the leadership of Ondo Ekimogun Youth Congress for their acceptance and arrangement of the meeting within a short time frame despite their busy schedule. He reiterated the efforts of Ondo State Government & other relevant stakeholders in eradicating Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) and specifically intimate the youth leadership of their readiness to start the 2020 dosage sharing to prevent and control Lymphatic filariasis (elephantiasis) and Onchocerciasis (river blindness). He informed that Mectizan and Albendazole drugs are going to be shared to the populace, he explained the reason for the spillover of the 2020 exercise to 2021 is due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

While responding the Youth Coordinator II, Kenneth Adegeye thanked the health officers for their efforts in treating and preventing NTDs and specially thanked Mr Akinwande Mayowa, the Ondo West Social Mobilisation Officer of the Primary Healthcare Agency for robust collaboration during the recently concluded Yellow Fever Immunization exercise.He asked areas the health officers want the assistant of the youth leadership and interval of dosage to avoid overdose, while also requesting structure and mode of distribution.

Explaining further, Mr Ilemobayo Jacob requested assitance in the area of Mobilization and Sensitization while also requesting for nominaton of some trusted youths to work as Community Directed Distributors-CDDs in their domiciled areas to work with primary healthcare officers. He explained the timing of the exercise which will start from Friday 22nd January, 2020 to 1st February, 2020 while they will be around till the 6th of February 2020 for proper data collection. Lastly he said the dose could be taken every six months.

In his address to the visiting health officers, Comrade Sola Akinbinu, the Youth Coordinator I encourage them to employ technology in disseminating information; he specifically requested the need to reach people in rural communities with proper sensitization; and asked for demographic data of previous immunization exercises to help the team and those that will be working with them. He emphasize the enormous advantage of data utilization in having an effective campaign.

While responding Mr Omoniyi Olatunji, the Assistant State Coordinator for the programme promised to get the requested data across through mail and explained the need for the general populace to come out enmass to receive the drugs. He informed that one of the drugs to be distributed Ivermectine(Mectizan) is presently been presented for approval to the World Health Organization for the treatment of Covid-19. The oral drugs will be effective against River blindness, Elephantiasis and possibly Covid-19.

Also present at the meeting were Mayowa Akinwande, Ondo West SMO, Mr Chidiebere Uche, representative of MITOSATH; and Sunday Adepeko, Olufemi Olukemi, Bode Fadoju, Kayode Folajogun, Ayo Adeola & Leke Adebayo representatives of the youths.

After much deliberations, the meeting was ended with a photograph session.