Bank donates nets to combat malaria

Intercontinental Bank has launched a malaria prevention scheme to donate 5,000 units of long-standing insecticide nets to Lagos.

As part of its corporate social responsibility programme the bank has donated the nets as part of its efforts to reduce malaria in Nigeria.

The bank is partnering with Cargo Suite Line to produce and distribute locally manufactured mosquito nets to Lagos's 36 states.

Dr Erastus Akingbola, chief executive of Intercontinental Bank, told the Nigerian Tribune the distribution of the nets "was in line with the bank’s Corporate Social Responsibility anchored on health and education".

He added that the gesture was "the bank’s contribution to assist the federal government in the fight against malaria-induced deaths in the country currently put at one million deaths every year".

The World Health Organisation says that malaria epidemics kill more than 100,000 people every year.

It is estimated up to 124 million people in Africa live in areas which are at risk of a seasonal malaria epidemic. There are targets in place that by 2015, 70 per cent of high risk population would use insecticide-treated bed nets to prevent malaria.