LAGOS – A Medical Researcher, Dr Bamidele Iwalokun, on Monday advised stakeholders to scale-up the coverage of malaria control efforts among pregnant women to reduce the maternal mortality rate in the [pro_ad_display_adzone id=”10″]country.
Iwalokun of the Nigeria Institute of Medical Research (NIMR), Yaba, spoke in an interview with the [pro_ad_display_adzone id=”10″]News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
“Malaria in pregnancy continues to be a substantial contributor to maternal mortality in the country; [pro_ad_display_adzone id=”10″]currently it accounts for 11 per cent of total maternal deaths every year.
“ To meet the 2015 Millennium Development Goal five targets of reducing maternal mortality, it is important for us to reduce the burden of malaria in pregnancy,” he said.
According to him, malaria in pregnancy also constitutes a risk to the unborn child and may lead to stillbirth, spontaneous abortion, premature delivery and low birth weight babies.
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He said that the malaria control efforts should include prevention, screening and treatment of malaria in pregnant women at the antenatal clinic.
“ Access to Intermittent Preventive Treatment in pregnancy (IPTp) needs to be promoted through antenatal campaign and antenatal care.
“The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends IPTp with sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) as a preventive treatment to be given to pregnant women during antenatal visit.
“ It is expected that women visiting antenatal clinics should get at least two doses of SP beginning from the second trimester of pregnancy,” he said.
Iwalokun also called for training and retraining of health workers for effective delivery of the crucial intervention in reducing maternal mortality in the country.
“ We must change our priority; health workers need to improve their attitude and knowledge on malaria control measures if we are to achieve our goal,” he said. (NAN)
Medical researcher advises stakeholders on reduction of maternal mortality rate
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