Birnin Kebbi—The Kebbi State United States Agency for International Development, USAID-funded training by Health Communication Advocacy Collaborative (HC3) has mapped out media campaign strategies on the elimination of Malaria.

The state HC3 Consultant, Mr Sammy Olaniru, told the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, in Birnin Kebbi yesterday that the Kebbi Malaria Elimination Committee had been trained on the effective strategies to be adopted to eliminate the disease.

He said the training was also supported by United States-based John Hopkins School of Public Health and Center for Communication Programme Nigeria, CCPN, on the Malaria elimination programme.

He said the training was aimed at enabling the state to develop a comprehensive state-level Social Behavioural Change Communication, SBCC, programme on Malaria elimination by 2020 in line with Federal Government policy.

Olaniru explained that the programme would also reduce the huge epidemiological burden of Malaria disease on Nigeria that had affected economic development.

He called on the state government to sustain support to the programme especially in developing strategic framework for maximum capacity building on elimination of malaria.

The consultant said modalities would be evolved to adopt the national policy on Malaria elimination appropriate for the state.

“The document would guide the state and partners to plan and implement communication interventions with focus on right message to the right audience for effective elimination of Malaria,” he said.

NAN reports that Kebbi and Akwa Ibom states are the beneficiaries of the USAID, John Hopkins, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Centre for Communication Nigeria.