One million children die annually before five years – FCA

About one million Nigerian children die annually before their fifth birthday due to various sicknesses, the Federal Capital Territory Administration, has said.

The Mandate Secretary, Health Services and Environment Secretariat, Dr Adedolapo Fasawe, made the disclosure on Friday at a news conference to kickstart the 2024 FCT Maternal Newborn and Child Health Week vaccination.

According to the News Agency of Nigeria reports, 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.

Dr Adedolapo Fasawe, was represented by Dr Babagana Adam, the Permanent Secretary, FCTA, explained 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.

According to him, malnutrition prevalence among this 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, saying that the rate of Stunting is 21.2 per cent, Underweight 12.1 per cent, and Wasting 3.0 per cent.

Fasawe noted that wasting reflects Global Acute Malnutrition that is still unacceptably high to meet the World Health Organisation’s global target of lower than 5% for GAM by 2025 (NDHS 2018).

The Mandate Secretary said, “Micronutrient malnutrition is also prevalent. Evaluation by the United Nations International Children Education Fund 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, Fasawe explained is 52 per cent according to MICS 2017 report, pointing out that the 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.

She stated that the rates are unacceptably poor and preventive measures need to be supported and promoted to be able to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, stressing that considerable achievements have been made through MNCHW to reduce the current indices and 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 6 – 59 months, Deworming of children between 12 to 59 months, as well as 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 a 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,” 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 that would be going around to carry out the exercise.