PROMISE AND FAIL

By Ruona Agbroko
July 7, 2009 12:58PMT

Three weeks after Abiodun Oduwole, the Ogun State Commissioner for Health, said that the state government had purchased a large quantity of drugs to fight schistosomiasis (a water-borne disease caused by worms) across the state, indigenes of Yewa-North Local Government Area have told NEXT that they have yet to receive any such drug.

After a report was published by NEXT on May 31 about children [one pictured] affected by the disease in Ijoun, a rural community in the state, an emergency meeting was held by the Ministry of Health on June 16. Oyin Sodipe, the Director of Public Healthcare and Disease Control with the ministry, told NEXT at the meeting that 20 schistosomiasis programme coordinators had been chosen for training on monitoring the disease in all local government areas of Ogun
State.

Mrs. Sodipe had said that they “will be delivering drugs and commencing intervention measures to even non-endemic areas immediately after this meeting.” She disclosed at the meeting that an Epidemic Preparedness Fund had been approved by the governor. She said that to battle the source of the disease, copper sulphate would also be used to treat the bodies of water in all
affected councils. However, when NEXT visited Ijoun on Saturday, July 4, residents said that “drugs have not been brought here.”

“We have not used our eyes to see any drugs, neither has our water been treated,” said Samuel Abiodun, the head of the community, in Yoruba.

Mrs. Sodipe could not be reached for her comments on the situation, while Kafil Emiola, the State Schistosomiasis Coordinator, answered NEXT’s telephone calls but immediately switched off her phone when asked about the non-availability of the drug (Praziquantel) to residents three weeks after the government said it had purchased the drug.
The Assistant Schistosomiasis Coordinator, Yewa-North Local Government Area, who simply gave his name as Mr. Ogunjimi, in a phone interview, told NEXT that the coordinator had gone to Ijoun over the issue.

“I am very far away from the local government headquarters but my coordinator has gone down there from Ayetoro. The drugs have gone to the State Primary Health Care coordinator, but the delay was that we wanted to choose a date. Hopefully today [July 6], they will do everything,” he said.
Asked to state categorically when the drugs would get to the affected patients in Ijoun, Mr. Ogunjimi said, “Sorry for the delay. They will get the drugs.”
Speaking with NEXT, Seun Oyelade, Information Officer of the Ogun State Ministry of Health, sought 30 minutes to “have an accurate picture of the situation.” She later sent a text message which read: “Officers who participated in the meeting that day were supposed to have given the drugs out.
But we are going there for inspection tomorrow.” Schistosomiasis is also known as bilharzia. The disease causes anaemia, bladder dysfunction, kidney and liver disease, and impaired learning in
children.
Although not eradicable once contracted, schistosiomiasis can be prevented and transmission controlled with a single annual dose of the drug Praziquantel,which costs about ₦30 per dose.