Tamale, March 01, GNA - Dr. Elias Sory, the Northern Regional Director of Health Services has called for pragmatic measures at all sources of malaria transmission points to ensure that malaria was rolled out of the system to improve the lives of the people.

Dr Sory was addressing a large gathering in Tamale on Wednesday during the launch of the "Nets for life" programme organised by the Ghana Standard Charted Bank aimed at helping reduce the transmission of malaria in the country.

"Nets for life" is a community partnership project aimed at reducing the impact of malaria in the country by protecting children and vulnerable segment of the population in order to ensure a healthy society.

The programme is also designed to save more than 100,000 lives by distributing mosquito bed nets to individuals particularly children, the aged and pregnant women to prevent them from getting malaria. Dr Sory used the occasion to thank President John Agyekum Kufuor for appointing him as the Director General of the Ghana Health Service.

"I am very grateful to President Kufuor and particularly to the Ghana Health Service for acknowledging and recognizing my work and recommending me to the President for the subsequent appointment". He has therefore called on Ghanaians, particularly those in the Health sector to give him the necessary corporation and assistance to push the health sector forward to offer quality healthcare delivery to Ghanaians.

Dr Sory also thanked the Northern Regional Minister and health personnel in the region for the moral support offered him during his tenure as the Northern Regional Director of Health services and appealed for the same support to help him succeed in his new appointment.

Dr Sory also appealed to Ghanaians to respect the sanitary inspectors popularly known as "Sama sama" when they start work to ensure that communities were clean, which would also help reduce the spread of malaria.

Mr. Alex Mould, Executive Director of Standard Charted Bank (SCB), client relationship for Central and West Africa indicated that the Coca Cola Africa Foundation and Exxon-Mobil and the Anglican Church was supporting the programme with 12 million dollars.

He said; the "Nets for life" programme was also launched in sixteen other African countries and that a total of one million bed nets would be distributed to individuals to protect them from getting malaria. Alhaji Mustapha Ali Idris, Northern Regional Minister commended the SCB for the initiative and urged all Ghanaians to be advocates of change to ensure that people took precaution measures to combat malaria. He appealed to other corporate bodies and NGOs to support the region to fight the guinea worm disease so that the people would live better lives to boost the northern economy.