The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has rated Nigeria as the second largest contributor to under-five mortality in the world.
The Chief of Field Office, UNICEF, Wilbroad Ngambi revealed this while delivering his goodwill message at the formal flag-off ceremony of the Rivers State Second Round of Maternal, Newborn and Child Health week (MNCH) at the Primary Health Centre, Ogale, Eleme, in Eleme Local Government Area of the state, yesterday.
Ngambi, who noted the nation’s slow progress in achieving its Millennium Development Goals targets at its 53rd National Council of Health in March, 2010, said the Maternal, Newborn and Child Health week was introduced, among other measures, as a priority and strategic action to accelerate the reduction in child mortality and improvement of maternal health.
He regretted, however, that the aim has been defeated, arguing that the targets set in the Sustainable Development Goals must be achieved if Nigeria is to overcome the enormous challenges posed by the overlapping deficits in the sector.
According to him “the MNCH week is organized to deliver an integrated package of highly cost-effective maternal, newborn and child health services/interventions. Sadly, however, Nigeria is the second largest contributor to under-five mortality in the world. The MDG 4 target of reducing under-five mortality to 71 per 1,000 live births by 2015 was not met.
Ngambi, however, said that Multi-Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) for mortality showed a sharp decline from 97/1,000 live births to 55.6 per 1,000 live births in the 2014 MDG report.
Commending the state for performing better than the national average, the state UNICEF boss noted, however, that the most recent MICS report recorded an upward trend of 58/1,000 live births in the MICS of 2016, adding that under nutrition among under-five children in the state still showed significant rate of 22.3 per cent stinting rates.
Ngambi, therefore, called on all stakeholders to take advantage of the programme that offers opportunity for awareness creation on the importance of recommended and proven health and nutrition interventions to the survival and general wellbeing of mother and child as well as its impact in national development, productivity, and economic growth.
Speaking to newsmen shortly after the event, the Rivers State Commissioner for Health, Prof Princewill Chike condemned the act of mothers patronizing herbalists for themselves and their children, maintaining that the substances they administer were without accurate dosages and could be harmful to some organs of the system, including the liver and kidney.
Chike averred that the state government had provided all that was needed for the health and survival of both mother and child, urging them to access and utilise the primary health centres across the 23 local government areas for their health needs.
On her part, the state Health Educator, Dr Doris Nria said the week-long event was focused on children, pregnant and lactating mothers, and charged them to ensure that no child was left out in the routine integrated interventions of immunization, nutritional screening, Vitamin A in- take, ante-natal care, birth registration, among others.

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