Success Stories

Malaria Training

Malaria is a serious health problem in Nigeria. It is responsible for 60% of outpatient visits to health facilities, 30% childhood deaths, 25% of childhood deaths among children under one year, and 11% of maternal deaths (about 45,000 die every year). A child will be sick with malaria between two and four times in one year. Close to 70% of pregnant women suffer from malaria, leading to maternal anemia, low birth weight in newborns, still birth, abortion, and other pregnancy-related complications.

According to the National Malaria Control Program (NMCP Annual Report, 2005),
Every year, the financial loss due to malaria is estimated to be 132 billion naira ($1.1 billion) for treatment, prevention, and loss of man-hours. In 2005, reported cases in  some of Nigeria’s northern states showed the following: Abuja/FCT (12,159 cases; 9 deaths), Kaduna (36,850 cases; 4 deaths), Kwara (51,694 cases; 0 death), and Sokoto (36,413; 42 deaths).

In 1998, the Roll Back Malaria Program was established as a global movement to mobilize support for local initiative to fight malaria. It involves multiple strategies targeted to meet local malaria control needs, one of which is to strengthen public and private health facilities and their staff members to enable them to implement malaria control programs at the local level.

Early in 2008, Gede Foundation was awarded a contract by the Society for Family Health (SFH), a principal recipient to the Global Fund Round 4 Grant for Malaria. The Foundation conducted training for health care providers from private facilities, private patent medicine vendors, and role model mothers in nine northern states in Nigeria.

A total of 3, 559 participants were trained following these objectives:

  • to increase the capacity of health care providers on current preventive strategies for malaria control
  • o improve the knowledge and skills of the participants in correct diagnosis and appropriate management of malaria, and
  • to acquaint participants with the details of the commodity supply chain and data management for the project.
These participants from Abuja, Borno, Kaduna, Kwara, Plateau, Sokoto, Taraba, Yobe, and Zamfara were made up of 683 (19.2%) health >>> CP (doctors, nurses, and pharmacists, 2,318 (65.2%) PPMVs, and 558 (15.6%) role model mothers. A team of facilitators from the School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, Military Clinic, Ministry of Defense, Yabo General Hospital, SFH, and Gede Foundation conducted the training sessions using the participatory approach to training where the participants had many opportunities to interact in a relaxed learning atmosphere.

Pre- and post-tests  were administered to the participants to measure knowledge before and after training. Average post-test scores reported from 116 classes ranged from 12% to 23% increase in knowledge.

There were many challenges that undermined the success of the trainings in terms of logistics, training materials, management of participants, and language barrier. However, the overall evaluation by participants in all training sessions ranged from good to excellent. The participants clamored for more future workshops, refresher courses, availability of nets to patent medicine shops, and increased availability to health services from the government.

Gede Success Stories