NOA: Nigeria’s Life Expectancy Rating Concerns Director
Dr. Ngozi Okechukwu, the State Director of the National Orientation Agency (NOA) in Abia State, has expressed her worry over Nigeria’s poor life expectancy rating among other African countries, as well as in the world, in Influenza and Pneumonia, which, are often reported to be leading causes of deaths.
Dr. Okechukwu spoke during the one-day health education and medical outreach that NOA organised for the men, women, and children of Abia State in collaboration with a medical team from the U.S. based ‘Inspire Hope Foundation’ (IHF) that is led by Dr. Chinyere Anyaogu, a Nigerian U.S. based physician, .
Dr. Okechukwu said, “In 2021, life expectancy at birth in Nigeria was about 60:87 years and, more specifically, this figure translates to 59 years for males and 63 for females.”
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She described this as an unacceptable scenario, by which all stakeholders must synergise in order to reduce the indices. The event featured topics such as medical sensitisation, health talks on Diabetes, Asthma, High Blood Pressure, diagnosis and treatment, educating the public on how to prevent, cure diseases, build heath confidence, improve brain health, reduce stress, among others.
Dr. Anyaogu, who is the president-elect of the Association of Nigeria Physicians in America (ANPA), said that their mission was targeted to benefit people who are in urgent need of medicare but cannot afford the cost.
She mentioned that some of the persons, who were attended to, had undisclosed high blood pressure, among other issues, and pointed out that her team had planned to liaise with the NOA on sustainability of the mission; hence this pilot one was privately sponsored due to the commitment to improving the people’s healthcare. The medical team and NOA, in collaboration with the Office of Abia State Diaspora Commission and the state Primary Healthcare Development Agency, organised and conducted a “Train the Trainer Workshop,” tagged: ‘Helping Babies Breathe,’ for selected health workers from the state’s 17 local councils at the state Women Development Centre, Umuahia.
The NOA director, however, noted that the training was to equip the trainees/health workers with the necessary skills towards reducing infant mortality and improve life expectancy.
