The Society for Family Health (SFH) says its IntegratE 2.0 Project helped prevent approximately 15,000 malaria deaths among under-five children.
Emeka Okafor, Group Director, SFH Donor Funded Portfolio, disclosed this on Wednesday in Lagos.
He spoke at the close-out dissemination event for the Gates Foundation-funded IntegratE 2.0 Project.
IntegratE is an SFH-led initiative strengthening community pharmacists and Patent and Proprietary Medicine Vendors (PPMVs).
The initiative expands access to quality family planning and primary healthcare services, particularly in underserved communities.
The project was developed to address persistent gaps in access to family planning and primary healthcare.
Its second phase was implemented across 11 states, including Lagos, from October 2021 to September 2026.
Newsextra24 reports that the project integrated community pharmacies and PPMVs into service delivery.
Okafor said malaria services reached more than 1.2 million children under five during the intervention.
He said large numbers were tested, while children who tested positive received Artemisinin-based Combination Therapy (ACT).
“About 340,142 under-five children with diarrhoea were treated with ORS and zinc.
“Also, 137,703 under-five children with pneumonia were given Amoxicillin DT,” he said.
Okafor said 7,681 children aged six to 23 months received micronutrient powder through the project.
He added that 10,898 presumptive tuberculosis (TB) cases were identified, with 1,320 confirmed cases placed on treatment.
He said the intervention also enabled about 1.7 million women to access various family planning services.
Of that number, nearly 400,000 women were accessing family planning services for the first time.
According to him, the figure demonstrates the potential of trained community providers to reach women outside formal family planning services.
Okafor said providers were trained to conduct medical eligibility screening before providing women with their chosen contraceptive methods.
“Where a particular method was unsuitable, providers were trained to offer further counselling and support clients,” he said.
He added that providers were trained to manage contraceptive side effects and identify clients requiring referral to higher-level facilities.
“These results demonstrate the broader potential of community-based providers to contribute to essential primary healthcare services,” he said.
Okafor pledged SFH’s continued technical support to states seeking to sustain and expand IntegratE 2.0 interventions.
He said sustainability mechanisms were deliberately incorporated into the project to preserve its achievements after donor funding ended.
Rather than training PPMVs directly, he said SFH worked with the Pharmacy Council of Nigeria to accredit schools of health technology.
The accredited institutions were subsequently trained to cascade knowledge and skills to community-based providers.
“This approach ensured training capacity was embedded within existing institutions, allowing continued training after project closure,” Okafor said.
He said the approach aligned with SFH’s broader mission of strengthening healthcare systems and expanding sustainable access to quality services.
“The key focus of SFH is reaching underserved communities with quality family planning and primary healthcare services. And that’s exactly what this project has done,” he added.
Okafor said community pharmacies and PPMVs were targeted because they serve significant numbers of Nigerians, particularly in underserved communities.
Looking ahead, he urged governments to recognise community pharmacists and PPMVs as important components of the healthcare system.
He called for their integration into formal referral systems and inclusion of their service data in the National Health Management Information System.
He specifically advocated incorporating relevant community-provider data into the District Health Information System (DHIS-II).
Okafor said integration would provide government with a fuller picture of healthcare utilisation and support better planning and policy decisions.
He also urged federal and state governments to integrate private-sector referrals into formal referral systems to ensure continuity of care.
Dr Dayo Lajide, Permanent Secretary, Lagos State Ministry of Health, said the state was taking steps to sustain referral and data systems.
Lajide said Lagos had maintained collaboration among government tiers, public facilities and private providers, including community pharmacists and PPMVs.
She said collaboration had been particularly important in strengthening referrals across public and private healthcare facilities.
Lajide said Lagos was also strengthening health data through its Smart Health Information Platform.
According to her, the platform was designed to unify electronic data collection across health facilities.
She said the system had expanded beyond public facilities to incorporate private-sector providers.
Lajide said this created greater visibility of services delivered by community-based healthcare providers.
She said Lagos planned to integrate IntegratE 2.0 lessons and interventions with existing malaria, HIV, tuberculosis and reproductive health programmes.
“This is not going to stand alone as a mono programme; it will be integrated into other programmes,” she said.
On institutionalising the project’s gains, Lajide said Lagos would continue using task-shifting and task-sharing to address healthcare workforce shortages.
Lajide was represented at the event by Dr Ismail Abdusalam, Director, Epidemiology, Biosecurity and Global Health, Lagos State Ministry of Health.
She said IntegratE 2.0 provided an opportunity to strengthen Lagos’ existing community-based healthcare network rather than establish a parallel system.
Dr Samuel Oyeniyi, Director, Reproductive Health Division, Federal Ministry of Health, identified evidence generation as a major IntegratE 2.0 outcome.
Oyeniyi Co-Chairman of the IntegratE Project Steering Committee, said the evidence would support policymaking.
He said the ministry would work with the National Family Planning Committee to consider the findings during policy and programme reviews.
Oyeniyi commended the Gates Foundation, SFH consortium and Pharmacy Council of Nigeria for supporting the project.
He also praised their contribution to integrating community-based providers into Nigeria’s healthcare delivery framework.
