By Ummi Ismaeel,
Minna
Niger State government has inaugurated a committee that will ensure drastic reduction in unfavourable childhood morbidity and mortality.
The measure is coming on the heels of the Nigerian Demographic Health Survey (NDHS 2013) that says out of 195,000 children, 19,000 die before their fifth birthday,
The survey also stated that the state has the third highest burden of childhood pneumonia among all the seven North-Central states.
Available Survey also indicated that, nearly six million children under the age of five die every year globally mainly from preventable causes, and most of these deaths are caused by Pneumonia and Diarrhea, the major killers of children, Under five years (U-5).
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health, Dr. Joseph Kolo, while inaugurating the Niger State Action Committee on Childhood Killer Diseases (NSACCKD) via a virtual meeting, said that the state government was worried and concerned about the trend.
The Committee has Dr. Ibrahim Dangana, Executive Director, State Primary Healthcare Care Development Agency (SPHCDA) as Chairman; Dr. Idris Mohammed, Director, Public Health as Co-Chairman; Mr. Patrick Gimba, IMCI coordinator as Secretary; Dr. Aliyu Yabagi Shehu, Programme Director, CCRHS-PAS and 26 others as members.
The committee unanimously agreed that there was the need to ensure drastic reduction in the unfavourable Childhood U-5 Morbidity and Mortality from preventable diseases such as Pneumonia and Diarrhoea in Niger State.
Team Leader of Niger PAS Partners and Project Director, Centre for Communication and Reproductive Health Services (CCRHS), Dr. Aliyu Yabagi Shehu, however, expressed preparedness of the team to support the state government in ensuring that budgeted allocations were released on time.