PRESS RELEASE

The Delta Commissioner for Health, Dr. Nicholas Azinge has reaffirmed the State Government’s commitment to partner with organizations both within and outside the country to help trace every outbreak of disease in any Local Government Area in the State with the view to stemming outbreaks of diseases.

The Delta Commissioner for Health, Dr. Nicholas Azinge made this known when the officials of Nigerian Institute for Trypanosomiasis Research, Kaduna, and the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnosis (FIND), Geneva, Switzerland paid him a visit in his office in Asaba.
Dr. Azinge said disease surveillance and response activities are very vital activities his Ministry carry out regularly in order to reduce the impact of any outbreak whenever it occurs.
He pledged to work closely with the Institute and its funding partners and also take advantage of their assistance to the State. To buttress this, he directed the Hospital Management Board to make it mandatory for Doctors to direct patients in endemic areas who have continuous cases of fever to take the rapid diagnostic test for sleeping sickness.

The Commissioner directed that any Doctor who fails to abide by the directive of sending those who tested positive from the test to visit the facilities designated for confirmation of the disease be sanctioned as a deterrent for others.

Speaking earlier, Prof. Joseph Ndung’u, Programme Head, Neglected Tropical Diseases, Foundation for Innovative New Diagnosis (FIND), Geneva, Switzerland said that Nigeria is one of the countries that has advanced in the control of human and animal trypanosomiasis or sleeping sickness in Africa.

He disclosed that since the last reported case of the disease in Nigeria in 2012, there has not been any new officially reported case till date and going by this trend, their projection for Nigeria is that the disease will not be existence in the country by the year 2020.
Prof Ndung’u revealed that the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnosis has launched an aggressive programme in Delta State where it sensitized policy makers, health workers and communities on what clinical signs to look out for, treatability and other important facts about the sleeping sickness disease .

 He said the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnosis partnered with the Nigerian Government through the Nigeria Institute of Trypanosomiasis Research (NITR), Federal and State Ministries of Health to put in place a strategy that will intensify the screening of communities in regions where cases of sleeping sickness have been reported in the past.
He further stated that this partnership has resulted in the training of health workers in the State and the introduction of screening facilities in fifty-two (52) health centers in the State.
According to him, the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnosis has supported the development of unique tests and a rapid diagnostic test kits for screening of sleeping sickness that is the same as malaria test so any health worker that can perform a malaria test, can perform this test.

Prof Ndung’u explained that the manner, in which screeningening test is deployed, requires that if somebody is found positive in the screening, the person will have to go for confirmation, because for this test, you have to get confirmed.

To this end, the health facilities centers for the confirmatory testing was increased last year from the initial 4 to twenty-five (25) centers in the State and since no case of the disease has been detected, the centers will be reduced to eighteen (18) based on the findings from the research carried out on the epidemiology of the disease all over the State but this time around uniformly distributed across the State while the surveillance of the disease will still continue.
He affirmed that only the World Health Organization (WHO) can confirm or verify that the State is free from the disease and so the data, being generated by the Principal Investigator from the Nigerian Institute for  Trypanosomiasis Research, Kaduna will be the basis by which the WHO will make its financial position on the disease in the State.
The Director/Principal Investigator, Nigerian Institute for Trypanosomiasis Research, Kaduna, Dr. Felicia Enwezor, in her contribution said the programme was initiated in 2014 but the actual screening operations started in 2015 and has continued till date.
She explained that the Nigerian Institute for Trypanosomiasis Research, Kaduna is the chief collaborator in the programme in terms of funding and it embarked on this visit to the State to assess what is on ground and discuss their findings as the programme will be rounding up by June this year in line with the memorandum of understanding signed with Delta State Government.


Front row: 2nd right State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Nicholas Azinge, right, Dr. Winful Orieke, Functioning Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health, Prof. Joseph Ndung’u Programme Head, Foundation for Innovative New Diagnosis, Geneva, Switzerland in a group photograph during the visit of the officials of the Nigerian Institute for Trypanosomiasis Research, Kaduna to the Health Commissioner in Asaba.

Ojebo Donald
PRO
Ministry of Health
March, 2017