Lagos — The Lagos State Government would today flag off an improved health programme in its public schools aimed at reducing the high mortality rate, occasioned by rapid population growth and unsanitary environment amongst kids below five years,

The state also raised an alarm that 90 out or every 1000 kids within the age bracket are exposed to a wide variety of environmental influences ranging from physical, emotional and social.

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health, Dr. Jide Idris, who raised the alarm on Thursday at a news conference, confirmed that children account for 40 per cent of the Lagos population estimated at 15 million, even as he claimed that medical records say that half of patients at public health institutions are infants.

He said the government is determined to reverse the dangerous trend with the introduction of the scheme tagged: "School health programme" in government-owned primary schools since pupils, who are vulnerable spend the large proportion of their lives in schools, where they undergo rapid physical and mental development.

His words: "This present administration has therefore found it necessary to develop a programme to address the situation, bearing in mind that by safe-guarding the health of the school children today, we are ensuring the health of tomorrow's leaders.

"One of the ways in which we have achieved this goal is through the School Milk Programme, which provides milk for 937 public primary schools in the state with a total of 64,635 primary one pupils benefiting from the programme.

"Today, we are introducing an improved School Health Programme, which is designed to prevent, reduce, monitor and treat problems peculiar to the pupils and with the school environment".

According to Idris, the Ministry of Education through its agency, State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), the various council authorities and some service providing Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) are collaborating on the implementation of the scheme.

The service organizations are COMPASS, UNICEF, JICA and Public Private Partnership Immunization Foundation (PPPIF)

The long-term plan, as the Permanent Secretary explained was the Ministry of Health to build the required capacity and technical assistance amongst local government employees before handing off the implementation of the programme.

He said: "It is expected that the local governments will eventually take ownership of the programme with support from the state. The Blindness Prevention Programme (BPP) implementation team will train the local government team on how to screen and refer pupils with eye problems.

"Free Malaria drugs will be made available. It is important to stress that healthcare services are free for this age group", Idris informed, hinging the success of the programme on the level of cooperation enjoyed by the parties involved.

Some objectives of the programme as listed by the Permanent Secretary are:

* Ensuring that school pupils maintain a healthy state of health;

* Imparting good health knowledge, practices and skills to children at the early age;

* Improving the school environment with a view to making them better places;

* Boosting the nutritional status of the pupils;

* Providing accurate and complete medical and nutrition records for each pupil;

* Ensuring hygienic and healthy preparation and distribution of food to the schools;

* Training of the school health officers and volunteer teachers on the school health and nutritional guidelines; and

* Correcting and treating refractive errors and eye diseases among others.