By Praise Chinecherem
The United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF said over 1.1 million children in Anambra State would benefit from its Vitamin A supplements in the next one week.
The nutrition specialist at the UNICEF Enugu office, Ngozi Onuorah gave the figure at the flag off of the Anambra State weeklong campaign for material and child health programme at Umueri in Anambra East local government area of the state.
The programme was planned by the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, NPHCDA, in collaboration with the state PHCDA, the ministry of health, with support from UNICEF, World Health Organization, WHO, and other partners.
Onuorah noted that the campaign would bring primary health care, PHC, interventions to the doorsteps of mothers and their children.
She however observed that there is a lot of Iron deficiency anaemia in children in Anambra State, adding that out of 334,838 pregnant women in the state, 170,148, which is about 51 Percent, are anaemic.
She said: “It is a high impact programme anchored by Vitamin A supplementation and deworming, which are the two given to children by annually. Vitamin A alone has the singular potential to prevent all causes of infant deaths by 23-26 percent.
“It boosts the child’s immune system and prevents a lot of infections, including measles attack.
“The Vitamin A target is for children aged 6-59 months and they are about 1,106,080 in Anambra State. We have given the state a ceiling of 85 Percent to achieve, which is over 998000, but we are hoping to achieve 100 Percent.
“It requires robust sensitization and UNICEF and government have supported town criers, jingles and many social mobilization activities to ensure that all communities in the state participate effectively. Our expectation is that all children in the state will be covered.”
The Chief of Field Office, UNICEF, Enugu, Mrs Juliet Chiluwe described the programme as significant milestone for the attainment of children right in Nigeria and also scaling up demands for PHC services.
She emphasized the need for mothers to eat and serve their children healthy and nutritious meals, stressing that several local foods were far more nutritious than fast food and other inorganic food preferred by today’s kids.
“UNICEF had been key in influencing policies, including attainment of child rights act and supporting flood victims in the state. For over 14 years now, we’ve been working closely with ASPHCDA, RUWASA, SEMA and other health institutions,” she added.
Commissioner for Health, Dr. Afam Obidike appreciated UNICEF and other stakeholders for their support to the state in various health interventions.
He described antenatal among pregnant women as life saving, assuring close monitoring of the exercise to ensure the desired results were achieved.
Earlier, Executive Secretary, ASPHCDA, Mrs Chisom Uchem said the outreach which would end July 2, was aimed at increasing access to, and utilization of essential and life saving interventions.
“The exercise is also to strengthen routine system through updated knowledge and skills of health workers for service delivery, improved health management information systems as well as improve healthy household practices,” she said.
Uchem further disclosed that the exercise would among other things, involve vitamin A supplementation and nutrition screening to children between 6 months to 59 months, deworming of children between one to five years as well as vaccination of children below 23 months.
