Nigeria’s child mortality, malnutrition too high

The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) says that approximately one million Nigerian children die annually before their fifth birthday due to various illnesses.

The Mandate Secretary, Health Services and Environment Secretariat (HSES), Adedolapo Fasawe, said this on Friday at a news conference to kickstart the 2024 FCT Maternal Newborn and Child Health Week (MNCHW) vaccination.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the MNCHW vaccination exercise, which is free for children from age 0 to 59 months, is scheduled to begin on 20 July and end on 24 July.

Represented by the Permanent Secretary of FCTA, Babagana Adam, Mrs Fasawe said that the alarming rate of death among children between ages 0 to 59 months had compelled the FCTA to continually carry out the vaccination exercise annually.

Mr Fasawe said that malnutrition prevalence among children in the FCT also made it necessary to carry out the exercise to make Nigeria’s children free from all forms of diseases.

“The rate of Stunting is 21.2 per cent, Underweight 12.1 per cent, and Wasting 3.0 per cent.

“Wasting reflects Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM), which is still unacceptably high to meet up the World Health Organisation (WHO) global target of lower than 5 per cent for GAM by 2025 (NDHS 2018).

“Micronutrient malnutrition is also prevalent. Evaluation by the United Nations International Children Education Fund (UNICEF) in the last SMART survey published in 2017 showed that Vitamin A coverage for FCT was 40.6 per cent which is far below the minimum 90 per cent target.

“Exclusive Breastfeeding Rate in FCT is 52 per cent with MICS 2017 report. Maternal mortality ratio in Nigeria is 512 deaths per 100,000 live births (NDHA, 2018), and 408 deaths per 100,000 live births in FCT.

“These rates are unacceptably poor and preventive measures need to be supported and promoted to be able to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals,” she stressed.

According to Mrs Fasawe, considerable achievements have been made through MNCHW to reduce the current indices, but there is need to do more to ensure that all eligible children are covered in interventions that will improve their nutritional status.

She said that the MNCHW was a special week set aside by the Federal Government of Nigeria twice every year (May/June and November/December) to deliver key interventions at the grassroots.

She added that the week focused on awareness and service delivery on maternal, newborn and child health care.

The mandate secretary stated that emphasis had shifted from stand-alone vertical campaigns to a more integrated approach to expose caregivers, and children to key interventions that improved their health status.

She said that the MNCHW vaccination exercise would provide services like Vitamin A Supplementation for children between 6 and 59 months, deworming for children between 12 and 59 months, and routine immunisation against vaccine-preventable diseases for children 0 – 11 months.

“There will also be growth monitoring and promotion exercise, food demonstration and nutrition screening of children from 6 – 59months, birth registration, family planning services and hand washing demonstration.

“There will also be focus on antenatal care and administration of IPTp to prevent malaria in pregnant women, HIV counselling and testing of HCT which has now been fully integrated into the MNCHW,” Mrs Fasawe said.

She reiterated the need for all stakeholders, including journalists, to promote MNCHW while also calling on households across the FCT’s six area councils to cooperate with medical officers who would be going around to carry out the exercise.

(NAN)