The Covenant Applied Informatics And Communication Africa Centre Of Excellence (CApIC-ACE), in collaboration with other bodies in Covenant University, and the Ado Odo/Ota Local Government, recently held a medical outreach for the residents of Iju, in Ado-Odo, Ota Local Government Area, Ogun State, in commemoration of the 2025 World Malaria Day.
With the theme, ‘Malaria Ends With Us: Reinvest, Reimagine, Reignite,’ it was aimed to raise awareness about the urgent actions needed in the fight against malaria, emphasising the importance of continued investment, innovation, collaboration and commitment in the global malaria eradication efforts.
While flagging off the event, the Head of the malaria research group at CAPIC-ACE, Professor Olayemi Akinnola, expressed her appreciation to all partners especially to the Vice-Chancellor of Covenant University, Professor Timothy Anake, as well as the centre leader, CApIC-ACE, Professor Emeka Iweala, for showing tremendous leadership in making the outreach a huge success.
She highlighted the importance of the programme, and introduced other members of the team which include medical personnel from the Covenant University Medical Centre, members of the Covenant University Community Impact Initiative Committee (CU-CDIIC) and members of the Federated Genomic (FEDGEN).
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She explained that, the Chairman, Ado Odo/Ota Local Government, Medical Director, Local Government health educator and Malaria Vocal person for the Local government, were formally informed through a letter from the Vice-Chancellor and CApIC-ACE centre leader to inform them and seek their support for the event.
The outreach which commenced at 8 a.m. started with health talks, which was mainly Malaria Prevention Talks from both the Ado Odo/Ota Local Government Medical team and the Covenant University team.
The team from the Federated Genomic Labs at CApIC-ACE introduced the CApIC-ACE FEDGEN PHIS (Public Health Information System), a platform designed to enhance public health literacy by incorporating text-to-text and text-to-speech language translation services, making health information accessible to indigenous communities in multiple languages.
The medical activities began with the participants’ vitals being taken, followed by free malaria parasite screening, blood sugar test, medical consultation, treatment and drug administration.
The test results were shared with the participants, while mosquito nets were given to participants, especially nursing mothers.
Over 300 community members were present and were attended to during the World Malaria Day outreach. They were mainly women and children.
The organisers disclosed that further molecular and microscopy testing will be conducted on all collected blood samples. Common ailments seen in adults which include malaria, cardiovascular diseases, pulmonary infections, and chronic conditions such as hypertension and joint pains were the most common among beneficiaries.
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