Four million lives lost yearly, says report

About four million women and children can be saved every year in Nigeria if simple, cost-effective health interventions reach the remotest communities, a new report by the Nigeria Academy of Science has shown.

The report shows how deaths of mothers, newborns and children under-five can be reduced by two-thirds through simple and cost effective interventions.

The ‘Science in Action’ report, presented in collaboration with an international nongovernmental organization, Save the Children U.K, ,shows that almost 4 million African women, newborns and children need not die each year if already well known interventions reached 90 per cent of families.

“This Science in Action’, we believe, will make the government appreciate what is going on,” says the president of the Nigeria Academy of Science, Oye Ibidapo-Obe. “Nigeria accounts for the highest number of newborn deaths and you will be surprised at the number we lose due to negligence of our health system.” The report shows that 1.2 million newborns die in a year in sub-Saharan Africa, amounting to 13,000 newborns daily. Of these deaths, Nigeria accounts for 283,000, followed by Kenya (51,000), Uganda (44,000), Ghana (23,000), Cameroun (21,000), South Africa (19,000) and Senegal (16,000).

Causes of death include babies born before term (preterm babies)- which accounts for 25 per cent of all deaths; sepsis/pneumonia 28 per cent; deaths associated with care during labour, 24 per cent; congenital causes, six per cent; and tetanus, six per cent.

The report says if effective health interventions such as immunizations, use of insecticide treated bed-nets, essential equipment for obstetrics care and others are integrated into existing health services, it could reduce the deaths by two-thirds.

“That is why we are sensitizing our politicians to make the money available so that we will reduce what we are seeing in these graphs by two-thirds, with these simple interventions,” the Country Director of Save the Children, Hussein Mursal said.

More facilities needed

The Head of Child Health Division of the Federal Ministry of Health, Nkeiru Onuekwusi, says the Ministry has been able to close some gaps but most of the available interventions still do not reach the communities.

“In our visit to one of the states, we discover that one of the problems we are experiencing is that we have too many health facilities that are not functioning. And instead of making it work by providing skilled manpower, we build new ones,” she said.


By Abiose Adelaja
February 26, 2010 07:37AM

Four million lives lost yearly, says report

About four million women and children can be saved every year in Nigeria if simple, cost-effective health interventions reach the remotest communities, a new report by the Nigeria Academy of Science has shown.

The report shows how deaths of mothers, newborns and children under-five can be reduced by two-thirds through simple and cost effective interventions.

The ‘Science in Action’ report, presented in collaboration with an international nongovernmental organization, Save the Children U.K, ,shows that almost 4 million African women, newborns and children need not die each year if already well known interventions reached 90 per cent of families.

“This Science in Action’, we believe, will make the government appreciate what is going on,” says the president of the Nigeria Academy of Science, Oye Ibidapo-Obe. “Nigeria accounts for the highest number of newborn deaths and you will be surprised at the number we lose due to negligence of our health system.” The report shows that 1.2 million newborns die in a year in sub-Saharan Africa, amounting to 13,000 newborns daily. Of these deaths, Nigeria accounts for 283,000, followed by Kenya (51,000), Uganda (44,000), Ghana (23,000), Cameroun (21,000), South Africa (19,000) and Senegal (16,000).

Causes of death include babies born before term (preterm babies)- which accounts for 25 per cent of all deaths; sepsis/pneumonia 28 per cent; deaths associated with care during labour, 24 per cent; congenital causes, six per cent; and tetanus, six per cent.

The report says if effective health interventions such as immunizations, use of insecticide treated bed-nets, essential equipment for obstetrics care and others are integrated into existing health services, it could reduce the deaths by two-thirds.

“That is why we are sensitizing our politicians to make the money available so that we will reduce what we are seeing in these graphs by two-thirds, with these simple interventions,” the Country Director of Save the Children, Hussein Mursal said.

More facilities needed

The Head of Child Health Division of the Federal Ministry of Health, Nkeiru Onuekwusi, says the Ministry has been able to close some gaps but most of the available interventions still do not reach the communities.

“In our visit to one of the states, we discover that one of the problems we are experiencing is that we have too many health facilities that are not functioning. And instead of making it work by providing skilled manpower, we build new ones,” she said.


By Abiose Adelaja

A Plague of Numbers:Saving Women and Children

The world is in the midst of an unprecedented expansion of human numbers, Nigeria ranks 8th ahead of any other African country on the top 10 list of the most populated countries of the world. With an estimated population of 149,229,090 million people (Year,2009), the evolution of growth can be uninhibited. Nigeria is projected to have about 264,262,405 million people by the year 2050 (United States Census Bureau) living within the artery of its landscape. It is a plague of numbers (overpopulation) as women within the reproductive age group encounter a conflict of fertility, giving birth to more children than they can effectively nurture for while trying to increase their chance of survival from maternal mortality.
Postulations in the 17th century by Thomas Malthus on population, predicts the possibility of significant increase in the world population in a geometric progression of 1,2,4,8 pattern while the means of subsistence (food) follows thus in an arithmetic progression of 1, 2, 3, 4 pattern, which inevitably can cause scarcity of economical resources and increased malnutrition among women and children. Population growth among the reproductive populace in Nigeria, may require complex and compelling choices, to avoid public health challenges which is an easy pry on women and children through inadequate water supply; emergence of new epidemics, deadly disease(s), starvation, malnutrition or poor diet with ill health, diet-deficiency as well as maternal and infant mortality. At the moment 6 women die every hour from complications resulting from child birth, Nigeria rank 2nd on highest maternal mortality tabulation.
Furthermore, a couple of significant factors continues to determine the state of a healthy populace such as birth rate, death rate, urbanisation and methods of population control especially through family planning and population policies. The world is aging in an unprecedented way! ''Family planning could bring more benefits to more people at less cost than any other single technology now available to the human race." (UNICEF). Existing contraceptive methods could go far toward alleviating the unmet need if they were available and used in sufficient numbers, through a variety of channels and distribution, sensitively adapted to local needs.
A mismatch between the Nigerian reproductive (women) populace and adequate health system services can increase mortality rate in the process of giving life. The timing and spacing of pregnancies are important for the health of the mother, her children, and her family. Most maternal deaths are due to unsafe practices in terminating pregnancies, a lack of readily available services for high-risk pregnancies, and women having too many children or having them too early and too late in life.
Thus all reproductive health services must be implemented as a part of a broader strategies to raise the quality of human life and sustenance. They must include the following:
• Effort to reduce and eliminate gender-based inequalities. Women and men should have equal opportunities and responsibilities in sexual, social, and economic life.
• Provision of convenient family planning and other reproductive health services with a wide variety of safe contraceptive options. Irrespective of an individual's ability to pay.
• Encouragement of voluntary approaches to family planning, elimination of unsafe and coercive practices.
• Develop policies that address basic needs such as clean water, sanitation, broad primary health care measures and education; and that foster empowerment of the poor and women.
It therefore eminent that we need to ensure adequate processes are adopted in curbing a plague of numbers in saving the lives of mother and child health care.


Femi Adeolu Amele

Nigeria Partners World Body On $4.3m Science Training Project

The World Federation of Science Journalists (WFSJ) has named Nigeria as a key partner in the second phase of its ambitious Science Journalism training project for Africa and Middle East.
WFSJ announced at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) holding in San Diego, California, that it would be partnering Nigeria’s Science and Public health media training organisation, Development Communications Network (DEVCOMS) in the project tagged Science Journalism Cooperation Project (SJCoop).
Consequent upon this, DEVCOMS`Programme Director, Akin Jimoh, has been appointed coordinator for the English-speaking group for Anglophone Africa.
Executive Director of WFSJ, Jean-Marc Fleury, who spoke on the collaboration with DEVCOMS during the announcement in San Diego, said DEVCOMS ”will be a partner of the WFSJ in implementing the project. Regional and national associations of science journalists in the Arab World and in Africa will gain experience and eventually implement their own training activities from start to end``.
WFSJ`s decision to partner Nigeria in the second phase of the science journalists training project derives from its conviction that the first phase which had imparted positively on science Journalism as it is practiced in Nigeria.
Some journalists who have participated in the first phase of the project include Onche Odeh and Michael Simire, both of Daily Independent Newspapers. Other Nigerian journalists that participated in the programme included Alexander Abutu of News Agency of Nigeria(NAN) and Abiose Adelaja of 234 Next.
“It is interesting to see that the project has resulted in a remarkable growth in science journalism in countries like Nigeria, `` WFSJ`s Executive said.
President of the Federation, Ms. Nadia El-Awady, who made the official announcement said the $4.3 million (Canadian) mentoring project is aimed at raising journalists that can efficiently cover health, environment, agriculture, science and technology in Africa and the Middle East.
She said SjCOOP would train 60 journalists in the reporting of science and another 15 as trainers in science journalism. It will be implemented with the explicit goal of reinforcing regional and local structures in the delivery of training in science reporting.
WFSJ, representing 41 associations of science and technology journalists from all over the world, will implement the ambitious and challenging three-year project, which is the second phase of project SjCOOP (Science journalism COOPeration).
“The first SjCOOP had a major positive influence on science journalism in Africa and the Arab World in the past three years”, said Ms. El-Awady. “This second phase is much more ambitious. We will provide journalists an opportunity to achieve the best a science journalist can hope for: make a difference in the life of people. But to get there, we will be extremely demanding,” she added.
The United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DfID) is the lead donor of the new project, building on its investment in the successful implementation of the first phase. The International Development Research Centre of Canada (IDRC) has also promised support, beginning April 2010, while several other donors and partners are in discussions with the WFSJ regarding the details of their support and collaboration.
The SjCOOP follow-up project will again be multilingual and simultaneously offer training in the Arabic, English and French languages. The training will address issues that are common to the Africa and Middle East contexts, such as a short fall of competent journalists needed to cover scientific and technology issues, lack of interest from editors for science and research, and deeply entrenched skepticism of scientists and policy-makers towards the media.
SjCOOP will also put in place and reinforce ten associations of science journalists that will provide sustainable support to these 60 journalists and 15 trainers.
Training of journalists is achieved at a distance while journalists remain active in their normal working environment. The journalists benefit from the advice and support of mentors who are experienced science journalists from within or outside their regions. These mentors provide a full range of advice and support, from help with specific reporting assignments all the way to career development and international freelancing. Mentors and mentees meet face to face at least once a year.
Science journalism basics will be addressed by tutoring in the first online course in science journalism, developed during the first phase of SjCOOP (http://www.wfsj.org/course/). More so, the thrust of the project is to increase reporting of relevant scientific knowledge and research by the African and Arab mass media and ultimately contribute to the use of evidence into policy making and decision-making.
SjCOOP’s new approach has very rapidly positioned the World Federation of Science Journalists as a leader in training journalists in the reporting of complex scientific and technological issues. This has been possible because of the Federation’s direct access to a worldwide network of the best expertise available in science journalism.
“We are hoping to continue this success with the second SjCOOP and to play a real role in supporting science journalism and improving the quality of science coverage in both regions”, concludes El-Awady.”



Nigeria Partners World Body On $4.3m Science Training Project
By Onche Odeh, Senior Correspondent (Reporting from San Diego, California)