By Ijeoma UKAZU |
As the ravaging Coronavirus continues to spread across States following a weakened health system and disruption of routine services such as vaccinations due to the COVID-19 pandemic 6,800 more women and an additional 950 children could die daily in the next six months in Nigeria, United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF has stated.
Making this known in Lagos, UNICEF also alerted that Nigeria is among 10 low and middle-income nations to experience the highest excess child mortality, where 173,000 children under the age of five could die daily from preventable causes.
Disclosing this in a statement, in Lagos, UNICEF further said that globally 6,000 additional children under the age of five could die every day.
According to the UN body, “In countries such as Nigeria, which have an overall weak health system, the crisis is further causing disruptions in medical supply chains and straining financial and human resources, visits to health care centres were declining due to lockdowns, curfews and transport disruptions even as communities remain fearful of contracting the virus.”
The estimates, which were based on an analysis by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and published in the Lancet Global Health Journal, noted that the 950 potential deaths are additional figures to the 475,200 children under the age of five who already died from preventable causes in Nigeria.
UNICEF bemoaned the devastating impact of COVID- 19, which poses a great threat to reversing a decade progress of ending maternal mortality and under-five child mortality in the low and middle income countries, due to reductions in routine health service coverage levels, including routine vaccinations, leading to an increase in child wasting.
The statement partly reads; “In Nigeria, these potential child deaths would be in addition to the 475,200 children who already die before their fifth birthday every six months – threatening to reverse a decade of progress in ending preventable under-five child mortality in Nigeria. About 6,800 more Nigerian maternal deaths could also occur in just six months.”
The UN body noted that the under-five mortality rate in Nigeria had declined gradually over the last two decades from 213 deaths per thousand in the year 1990 to 120 today, probably due to improved access and coverage of key lifesaving interventions at primary health care and community levels and improved immunisation rates.
However, the three scenarios of the potential impact of COVID-19 in 118 low and middle-income countries, including Nigeria due to reductions in routine health service coverage levels, including routine vaccinations and an increase in child wasting has shown a potential increase in both maternal and child deaths.
The 10 countries that are most likely to witness the highest excess child mortality rates under the worst-case scenario were listed as Djibouti, Eswatini, Lesotho, Liberia, Mali, Malawi, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sierra Leone and Somalia. Also, according to the modeling and assuming reductions in coverage in the worst-case scenario, the 10 countries that could potentially have the largest number of additional child deaths are Bangladesh, Brazil, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Uganda and United Republic of Tanzania.
Henrietta Fore, UNICEF’s Executive Director, noted that “Under a worst case scenario, the global number of children dying before their fifth birthdays could increase for the first time in decades. We must not let mothers and children become collateral damage in the fight against the virus.”
Peter Hawkins, UNICEF Nigeria’s Country Representative said, “we have made steady progress in reducing preventable child and maternal deaths in Nigeria over the last 20 years and it would be devastating if that progress is lost or reversed in Nigerian families, communities and for the country as a whole.
“The estimates in this new study show that if, for whatever reason, routine health care is disrupted, the increase in child and maternal deaths will be devastating. What this study also shows is the critical importance of continuing to provide life-saving services during these challenging times.
“We need to continue to deliver children into a safe pair of hands at a well-equipped clinic; we need to continue to ensure newborns receive their essential vaccinations and have their births registered and we need to continue to ensure children get the essential nutrition they need to survive and thrive beyond their first day and throughout their childhoods.”
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