Over 40,000 mosquito nets for residents of Wa municipality

More than 40,000 Long Lasting Insecticide Treated Nets (LLITNs) are expected to be distributed free of charge to residents of Wa Municipality in February.

It forms part of the national Hang-up Campaign on LLITNs, being implemented by the Ministry of Health (MoH) and the Ghana Health Service (GHS) with support from DFID and UNICEF.

The Wa Municipal Health Directorate is putting in place strategies, including the recruitment and training of volunteers as well as the formation and inauguration of committees to plan activities towards a successful exercise.

Inaugurating the committees Mrs. Beatrice Kunfah, Wa Municipal Director of Health Services, said more than 40,000 LLITNs would be distributed and that the Upper West Region had the highest rate of under-five mortality in the whole of the country

She said the target of the campaign was to ensure that 90 percent of structures in the Municipality were covered and 80 percent of the population slept under mosquito nets, adding that, the government and the partners had made available nails and hammers to enable the over 200 volunteers to hang the nets personally for beneficiaries.

Mrs. Kunfah mentioned volunteer attrition, hijacking of campaign by some Assembly members, rampant change of dates of planned activities, lack of proper coordination, difficulty in getting storage places as well as competing health programmes, among others, as some of the challenges encountered by some regions that had already gone through the exercise.

Source: GNA