HC3’s Malaria Project in Nigeria Uses Community Volunteers to Drive Demand

HC3’s community volunteers in Kebbi State, Nigeria.

The Health Communication Capacity Collaborative (HC3) is working in Nigeria with the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative to increase demand for malaria prevention and treatment. As part of this work, HC3 engaged community volunteers in rural Nigeria to help drive people to health services when they or their children have fever that may be associated with malaria.

Kebbi State, with a population of 3.2 million, has one of the highest malaria burdens in the country but historically low utilization of malaria prevention and control interventions. According to the 2015 Nigeria Malaria Indicator Survey (NMIS), Kebbi has the highest rate of children under five with malaria (64 percent) in the entire nation.

HC 3 deployed its community volunteers to Kebbi, where one particular primary health center (PHC) was in danger of closing because of low demand for its services. The Kimba PHC was so under-used that it had to ship its malaria drugs to other facilities for fear of them expiring on the shelves.

After HC3’s community volunteers started working there, Kimba’s PHC started getting busier and busier, so much so that it now stays open around the clock.

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