Africa-Press – Uganda. The distribution of insecticide-treated mosquito nets has attracted big numbers of Masaka City dwellers as the Ministry of Health kicked off the mass distribution exercise in selected districts in the country.
According to Mr Musa Maberi, the Masaka City health inspector, to ensure thorough distribution of the nets, they have involved village leaders to register residents that are collecting nets on top of being entered into the system to see if the data corroborates with that collected from wards/villages ahead of the distribution exercise.
“The use of technology and involvement of local leaders will help much in the distribution of the nets so that the right people get the nets,” he said in an interview on Thursday.
“By the close of business Thursday we had distributed over 66 per cent of the nets we received, and the numbers could be much bigger than that because some data is still being entered into the system, and we expect that by Friday we would have completed the exercise,” he said.
Masaka City received over 224,000 mosquito nets to be distributed in the two municipalities of Nyendo/Mukungwe and Kimaanya/Kabonera that make up the city.
Mr Mabera, however, said that they got some challenges in the two parishes of Kasanje and Kyamuyimbwa in Kimaanya/Kabonera Municipality where the team involved in data collection reported lower numbers of people compared to the actual number of residents in those areas which made the area receive fewer nets.
In Kyesiga Sub County in Masaka District, Mr Gordon Ssebugwawo Mayanja, the sub-county chairperson said a big number of residents in the area missed out on the nets and asked the government in the next arrangement to increase the number of nets sent to villages.
“The challenge was that they were only giving only two nets in each homestead and others were given one, yet these homesteads have several members, so many people missed out,” he added.
Masaka District Health Officer, Dr Faith Nakiyimba, however, blamed this on poor data collection which was done by some members of Village Health Teams.
“The nets were distributed according to the number of people in homes, every 4 people were getting at least two mosquito nets,” she said.
Masaka District got at least 200,000 mosquito nets that were supposed to be distributed in the four sub-counties that make up the district.
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