Nigeria rated the world’s worst country for child survival

...As UNICEF launches 2008 Reports

AT first sight, she represented purity and innocence. Moments later, she became restless, her gentle skin became hot. She wailed like a wild animal. Within seconds, she began stooling and vomiting uncontrollably. Her mother held her in a fruitless effort to calm her. The little angel of about 10 months was rushed to a nearby health center where Evelyn, the worried mother, was shocked to discover that there was no health worker in attendance.

Before she could overcome her shock, two other women arrived with their babies strapped to their backs. Unfortunately, before they could be attended to, their innocent babies had passed on. Try as much as Evelyn and the two women could, they could find no answers to the calamity that has befallen them. Why are children still dying as a result of childhood preventable diseases in a country with enough resources? The answer was blowing in the wind for all they cared. This scenario describes the situation in Nigeria and some other African countries.

Each day, 30,000 children aged under-five die. Nearly 99 per cent of these deaths occur in countries like Nigeria and most are preventable. Globally, children die at the rate of 18 per minute.

Regrettably, many in the developing world, and especially the poor, still lack access to basic services, which result in this tragic and needless loss of life. Another sad fact is that most of these developing countries know why children die and what could be done to reduce the incidence but unfortunately, little or nothing is being done to check these deaths.
The fourth Millennium Development Goal (MDGs) aims to reduce by two thirds the mortality rate among children under- five. For Nigeria to achieve this, the country has to reduce its under-five mortality rate to 67 deaths for every 1,000 live births by 2015.

Today, the under -five mortality rates is estimated at 192 per 1,000 live births reflecting the urgent need to accelerate progress in the remaining years to reach the MDGs target.
Understanding the need for a child survival revolution UNICEF is supporting the Nigeria government in implementing the Accelerated Child Survival and development (ACSD) strategy.

Despite this impressive efforts, the 2008 State of the World’s Children Report ranks Nigeria among the 12 countries in the world reporting the highest under- five mortality rates.

At the official presentation this report tagged, “Child Survival” by UNICEF in Abuja last week, UNICEF Representative, Dr. Robert Limlim declared that child survival is central to Africa meeting the millennium development goals.
According to him, child survival is the key to Africa meeting all the millennium development goals because six of the goals have targets that relate directly to children’s health.

Quoting from the state of Africa’s children report, he said Sub- Sahara Africa faces the greatest crisis of child mortality as about 50 per cent of child deaths in the world happen in the region and nearly 50 per cent of children dying in West Africa are in Nigeria.

“Fortunately, most of these lives could be saved by low - cost and high impact interventions like vitamin A supplements and breastfeeding for infants up to six months of age, sleeping under nets treated with insecticide, safe drinking water and basic sanitation and immunization.”

The two reports, State of the World Children’s report and State of African Children’s report with 54 pages also show that more than one million children under -five years of age die annually in Nigeria.

LimLim further noted that nearly a third of the children under five are underweight and half of the population does not have access to improved drinking water sources. He opined that upsurge of children crippled by polio has reached such proportion that urgent and drastic measures have to be taken if Nigeria must interrupt transmission by next year.
He urged Nigerian government to demonstrate increased attention and investment for the survival and development of children.

Tasking Nigeria Government on the children, he said “It must be our top priority for the coming years. It must be a strong bench mark for judging progress of states in the federation, it must become an indicator for leadership accountability and child survival must become a product of dividends of democratic rule.”

Declaring that the report is not so bleak in Africa, he said five African countries, Algeria, Egypt Libya, Morocco and Tunisia reduced their child mortality rates by at least 45 per cent between 1990 and 2006 putting them on track to meet the child survival target.

He further challenged the Nigerian government that if these countries can do it, Nigeria has the potential and resources to achieve greater feats towards the attainment of the MDGs.

Also speaking, the UN Representative, Dr. Alberic Kacou who was represented by WHO representative in Nigeria, Dr. Peter Eriki called on government of Nigeria and Africa at large to increase investment in health and nutrition at Federal, state and local government levels so that effective intervention with high impact on child survival can be implemented.
Kacou also called for a renewed effort in polio eradication and the presidential directive to situate the polio eradication in the context of child survival.

He explained that the interventions are part of a comprehensive package to ensure the rights of children to life, survival and development can be achieved in s sustainable way.

Vanguard Online Edition