The Delta State Government says it hopes to reduce the mortality rate from malaria by 50 per cent at the end of this year, noting that measures to achieve the feat are already in place.

The Commissioner for Health, Dr Nicholas Azinge, who made the assertion on Thursday in Lagos in an interview at the Medic West Africa Medical Exhibition, however, did not give the current prevalence rate.

The exhibition, the largest in West Africa, holding at Eko Hotel Convention Centre, Victoria Island, has medical equipment manufacturers, suppliers and drug manufacturing industries from all over the globe attending.

More than 280 exhibitors from over 32 countries, including Nigerians are displaying their best products at the exhibition which began on Wednesday and will end on Friday.

On plans by Delta to fight malaria as part of its effort to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), Azinge said that efforts were being geared toward achieving the target.

“As part of our fight against malaria, we introduced a programme called `Save a One Million Lives’ which is geared toward six indices on how to reduce malaria.

“One is the rigorous enlightenment campaign on the need to have a clean environment, sensitisation on the use of mosquito nets which has been provided in abundance.

“Others are equipping our Primary Health Centres (PHCs) at least two in each ward in the local governments and upgrading our secondary health facilities to accommodate the treatment.

“And the provision of emergency services and recruitment, training and re-training of our staff to meet these goals,’’ he said.

Azinge added that government had put in place new infrastructure and also upgraded the existing ones to cater for the new status of the state.

“The government has put up a monitoring team to assess our performance on the reduction of malaria. We don’t want people to die of malaria. People should not die of it at all.

“As the government is planning to do more to enhance efficient and qualitative healthcare delivery, the target is to reduce the incidence of malaria mortality by 50 per cent.

“We also want to reduce malaria morbidity by 25 per cent. As I have said, the target is to save a million lives. The number of people suffering from malaria should decrease.

“Our first aim is that people should not have malaria at all, and secondly people who are sick as a result of malaria should get instant treatment from our affordable healthcare facilities,’’ he said.

The commissioner said that Delta had benefitted from the last and incumbent administration in the state in terms of attention given to the health sector.

“Delta is lucky to have two successive governors that are medical doctors. The former governor, Emmanuel Uduaghan, is a medical doctor and also, the incumbent, Dr Ifeanyi Okowa is a physician.

“The incumbent governor was formerly the chairman for the Senate Standing Committee on Health, so, he is one of those that enacted the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).

“Our amiable governor takes the health sector seriously and that is why we have adopted the NHIS Scheme in Delta and we have set out how we can register the formal sector.

“The registration of the formal sector will be launched and after everybody would have been registered and insured, we will be able to provide affordable healthcare services.

“When we have a large pool of funds, the healthcare levels will be properly funded; the Primary, Secondary and Tertiary health institutions will be well maintained,’’ he said.

Azinge said that part of the efforts at improving the healthcare system in the state would include a complete reinforcement of the entire health system.

“After we are through with the NHIS which will make people to access healthcare at affordable rates, we will channel the energy toward using the large sum of money for the system.

“The state plans to improve on the three layers of the healthcare namely: primary, secondary and tertiary. For the primary, we are almost done with providing at least two Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) in each ward.

“We have about 402 PHCs, 64 Secondary institutions and one tertiary hospital which is Delta State Teaching Hospital in Oghara, built to international standard.

“We also want to continue with providing free maternal healthcare which has been hampered through economic downturn in the country. We are finding a way of funding it,’’ he said.

On emergency response and healthcare for people in the riverine communities, Azinge said that government had what it takes to take cater for them.

“We will focus on training and re-training of our medics to align with the best international standard and also get enough medical personnel to run the hospital.

“We also want to improve on our emergency services and if the Federal Government can bring its own part for emergency through National Health Act, we will complement.

“If there is an emergency, there is a toll free line to call like it’s done in the developed world. Delta has acquired several boats and ambulances. We acquired four boat ambulances.

“We also have support from Chevron which provided two boats and ambulances for these rural areas. We also train the personnel to handle them,’’ he said.