Health

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ECOWAS and Rivers State sign a memorandum for the building of a factory to produce anti-mosquito larvae biolarvicides factory in Port Harcourt

|  By Maureen Chigbo  |  Jul. 29, 2013 @ 01:00 GMT

THE Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, has moved a step further in its bid to eliminate the scourge of malaria in the region. On July 17, the ECOWAS and the government of Rivers State, Nigeria, signed a memorandum of understanding, MOU, for the construction of a factory to produce anti-mosquito larvae biolarvicides under the ECOWAS Malaria Elimination Campaign. Biolarvicides are safe substances sprayed to destroy mosquitoes in the larvae stage of their development.

The agreement is a follow up to the tripartite accord which ECOWAS signed in 2009 with Cuba and Venezuela, for the setting up of three biolarvicide factories in three ECOWAS member States – Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria and Ghana – for the supply of the product across the region. It is a sure means of strengthening the vector control strategy for malaria elimination. The foundation stone laying ceremonies for the factories have taken place in Yamoussoukro and Port Harcourt, with that of Ghana expected in August 2013.

Under the Tripartite Agreement, Venezuela and Cuba would provide the financial and technical support as well as technology transfer for the establishment of the biolarvicide factories, to make the product readily available for use in the regional fight against mosquitoes and eventual  elimination of malaria from the region, as happened in Latin American countries.

The multi-sectoral regional campaign with a robust communication and social mobilisation component, envisages mass public enlightenment on the benefits of environmental sanitation, training on effective use of biolarvicides, and possible involvement of military personnel for large scale larviciding/spraying across the region. Initialing the MOU on behalf of Kadré Désiré Ouédraogo, president of the ECOWAS Commission, Vice President Toga Gayewea McIntosh, reaffirmed the organisation’s total commitment to the elimination of malaria scourge in the region.

“We still have a long way to go, but we are gradually moving on the right path,” he said, adding: “We wish to reassure the government and people of Rivers State that we will do all within our power to ensure the successful implementation of this project.”

Similarly, Sampson Parker, Rivers State Commissioner for Health, who signed on behalf of Governor Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, said the MOU and other efforts by ECOWAS were bold statements by the region of its determination to ensure malaria elimination. This is vindicated by the declaration of the African Union’s Abuja +12 Summit. He pledged the government’s total commitment and desire to complete the project during the tenure of Governor Amaechi. Mariane Ngoulla, the ECOWAS health adviser, was among those that witnessed the signing of the MOU at the ECOWAS Commission’s Abuja headquarters.

Meanwhile, in line with the World Health Organisation’s position that vector control is the only intervention capable of reducing malaria transmission from the highest level to zero, African leaders in their just-concluded special summit on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in Abuja, resolved to “intensify the use of Larval Source Management, LSM, where suitable for the control and elimination of malaria.” Malaria costs Africa more than $12 billion annually in addition to hundreds of thousands of deaths, especially children under five and pregnant women, with West Africa bearing a disproportionate level of the burden.

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