The Federal Capital Territory Administration says that approximately one million Nigerian children die annually before their fifth birthday due to various illnesses.
Dr. Adedolapo Fasawe, Mandate Secretary, Health Services and Environment Secretariat, said this at a news conference.
The conference on Friday, was to kickstart the 2024 FCT Maternal Newborn and Child Health Week vaccination.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the MNCHW vaccination exercise, which is free for children from age 0 to 59 months, is scheduled to begin on July 20 and end on July 24
Represented by Dr. Babagana Adam, the Permanent Secretary, FCTA, Fasawe said 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.
Fasawe said that malnutrition prevalence among these set of children in the FCT also made it necessary to carry out the exercise to make Nigeria’s children free from all forms of diseases.
She said: “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 global target of lower than 5 percent 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 percent, which is far below the minimum 90 percent target.
“Exclusive Breastfeeding Rate in FCT is 52 percent 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.
According to Fasawe, considerable achievements have been made through MNCHW to reduce the current indices, but there is the 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 six and 59 months, Deworming of children between 12 to 59 months, as well as routine immunisation against vaccine preventable diseases for children 0 and 11 months.
She said: “There will also be growth monitoring and promotion exercise, food demonstration and nutrition screening of children from six to 59 months, birth registration, family planning services and hand washing demonstration.
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Fasawe said: “There will also be focus on antenatal care and administration of IPTp to prevent malaria in pregnant women, HIV counseling and testing of HCT which has now been fully integrated into the MNCHW.”
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 that would be going round to carry out the exercise.