Infant Mortality: Nigeria Records A Near Zero Reduction In The Past Decade
Dr. Adeleke Mamora, the Minister of State for Health, has said that over the past decade, despite the fact that Nigeria’s under-five mortality rate has decreased along with a slight reduction in the infant mortality rate, there have been no visible changes in the neonatal mortality rate over the same period. As he spoke at the ‘Global Exemplars in Stunting Reduction and Countdown to 2030 study dissemination meeting’ at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, in Abuja, Dr. Mamora explained that, although some achievements have been made, there is still a huge room for improvements on Nigeria’s under-5 health indexes.
According to him, “Our commitment to achieving universal health coverage puts on us the responsibility to redouble our efforts on concrete interventions that will indeed exempt our children from stunting and other morbidities. Every morbidity, every mortality, every ugly change in nutritional status that is reported may appear to us as mere data, but to the families concerned, it is a rude termination of their joy and expectations and some may never recover from it. As stakeholders in the health sector, a huge responsibility is laid on us to see that even as we count the data towards 2030, we make the experience worthwhile by really making the data count.”
Global Exemplars in Stunting Reduction and Countdown to 2030 Study’s Global Principal Investigator, Dr. Zulfiqar Bhutta, stated that stunting is not a disease condition, but a syndrome that reflects environmental, living, health as well as intergenerational influences on growth.
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According to him, “Children become stunted by 3 to 6 months, and the condition peaks at 18 months. Globally, over 20 percent of children under five years are stunted. India, followed by Nigeria and Pakistan, accounts for 75 percent of the entire global burden. For countries like Nigeria, stunting offers huge challenge and opportunity to learn from the progress made sub-nationally.”
Professor Adebola Orimadegun, the Nigeria Site Principal Investigator, said that the state-level analysis revealed a varied performance in stunting reduction across Nigeria and Nigeria has opportunities to reduce cases of stunting, as many countries with similar levels of GDP growth have shown in global studies.
Dr. Isaac Olufadewa, a doctor from the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids)’s, mentioned that the findings from the study indicated that maternal and paternal education, maternal weight and body mass index had strong effects on the reduction of stunting in Nigeria. He further added that such government policies and programmes to reduce malaria prevalence improve antenatal care and increase the skilled birth attendants are drivers of stunting reduction in Nigeria because they improve child growth.
The project’s co-Principal Investigator, Professor Ayodele Jegede, said that the barriers to stunting reduction were based on qualitative data which includes the need for fathers to be educated on what they should be looking for in their children and education on food choices for children’s growth.
