Fighting malaria in Nigeria — one child at a time
Paul Onah is a hero.
Paul is a volunteer, who provides basic healthcare for children under five in his community. He lives in the Anyioye community in Benue State, Nigeria. The state has one of the highest rates of malaria for children under five in the country.
Before the health volunteers, children who were sick in his community, had to travel with their parents for hours to get to the nearest health centre.
During the rainy season, roads flood and many communities like Paul’s become cut off. Parents have to walk through the water with their sick children.
Christian Aid, with our partner Ohonyeta Caregivers (OCAG), trained Paul and another 945 volunteers like him across 130 communities as part of the Partnership for Integrated Child Health project known as PICH.
The project is funded by UK Aid Match and so far has helped treat over 45,500 children.
The project aims to reduce the number of deaths among children under five, from pneumonia, diarrhoea and malaria.
The project is reaching communities in under-served, remote areas training health volunteers known as Community Oriented Resource Persons (CORPs).
Paul treats children in his own house. Equipped with a box with basic medical items and drugs, he was trained to detect, test and treat children for malaria, pneumonia and diarrhoea.
The project is in its second year of implementation, and so far, volunteers like Paul have done over 77,000 malaria tests and 45,000 children have been treated with the artemisin-based combination therapies (ACTs), a drug that they can readily provide to treat children who test positive for malaria.
