Lagos – Pharmacists and patent medicine vendors in Amuwo-Odofin local government area of Lagos state on Tuesday adopted the use of Rapid Diagnostics Tests (RDTs).
The New Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the two groups embraced the new malaria treatment at a workshop organised by the National Malaria Control Programme.
Speaking at the occasion, Mrs Folasade Lawal, Managing Director, Victory Drugs Pharmacy, said that an average of 20 persons patronise her pharmacy for malaria treatment daily.
Lawal said that most patients do not agree to the testing, saying that it was a time consuming process and was more expensive.
She said that she was previously using the Double G malaria detection kit and Malaria AG PT Poct AD Kits to test for malaria before treatment as a move of sacrifice for the people.
“The tests we have done so far with the kits, worked effectively but I would not say the result was 100 per cent successful because most of them were negative.
“The results often comes out negative, and when it is negative, we advise the patients to go home and rest as it could be a sign of stress and to see a doctor if symptoms persist.
“For sometimes now we have not been using the test and treat method because of the regular negative results we were getting.
“Because a result can come out negative from us and when the patient go to the lab it would be positive, we have had cases like that and we are trying to avoid such,’’ she said.
Lawal further said that patients often attribute all fever as a sign of malaria without knowing that countless of sicknesses can come with fever signs or headaches.
“For instance, I have not been diagnosed or treated of malaria since 2011, so not testing before treating is a high risk and would be creating more problem than solving.
“I train members of my staff regularly and do absolute monitoring when they are working, in some cases I do follow up on patients,’’ she said.
Lawal welcome the new development, saying the enlightenment forum would go a long way in educating the public on RDTs.
Miss Chiamaka Emezinnwane, a resident pharmacist at Oxpharm pharmacy, said that she had no idea about the RDTs but it was a welcome idea for her organisation.
She said that it would contribute positively to malaria therapy and they would no long treat patients ignorantly, noting that it would give them a lead on how to handle malaria cases.
She also said that as long as the method was very reliable, it would start working immediately because a table would be set for the use of RDTs in her pharmacy.
Emezinnwane said that an average of 10 cases of assumed malaria patients visit the pharmacy on a daily basis seeking treatment.
She also assured the team that she was going to give her best in convincing her patients to adopt the RDT.
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On her part, Mrs Mercy Ohwo, a licensed patent and proprietary medicine vendor, said that she already had an insight of what the training was about.
Ohwo said that she was first trained on test before treatment method by Philip Pharmaceutical Company, and she was practicing the method in her shop.
She said that she had conducted 20 tests on different patients since she was trained and that about 19 patients tested negative while one tested positive
“The problem with the test I have conducted was that some of the patients who tested negative but continued to show symptoms, tested positive in the hospitals and got better after treatment was administered.
“The kits for the testing are different so I believe that the one from the Federal Government will work better,’’ she said. (NAN)