The Ghana Health Service’s (GHS) Kadjebi District Directorate will begin the Seasonal Malaria Chemo-prevention (SMC) exercise on Monday, June 26 through to Friday, June 30.
The exercise targeted 14,450 children between 3-59 months to be dosed during the period.
The SMC exercise aimed to reduce morbidity and mortality among children under five years in the district.
The District Director of Health Services, Mr Eric Nana Takyi, disclosed these to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in an interview at Kadjebi in the Oti Region.
He said “the registration target is 90 per cent and closing target 95 per cent “and that the exercise is in four rounds; round one in June, round two in July, round three in August and round four in September which are peak malaria transmission periods.
Nana Takyi said “there was much reduction in malaria mortality during the SMC period as compared to the non-SMC period in the previous year’s”.
“Morbidity among children under five reduced from 32 per cent in 2021 to 22 per cent in 2022” and “no death among the under-five in 2022 as compared to 2021 where one death was recorded”, he said.
The District Director of Health Services said SMC is a proven intervention to reduce malaria morbidity during rainfall and that the medication is not harmful and is free of charge.
He said every child needs to receive three doses for three continuous days to completion and thus, called on all parents and caregivers to make sure their wards benefit from the exercise.