Daily Independent (Lagos)
Onche Odeh
21 January 2009
An estimated six million Nigerian children are infected with clinical pneumonia, just as 200,000 die of same disease yearly, records from the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) and World Health Organisation (WHO) have revealed.
These statistics unveiled by Public Health Physician, Dr. Chizoba Wonodi, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, at a press briefing in Ibadan on Tuesday, shows that Nigeria has the second worst records on deaths resulting from pneumonia after India.
A bitter reality, however, is that Nigeria is yet to adopt the use of a vaccine against the disease, despite overt move by various bodies to ensure its adoption as a veritable mean of reducing deaths from the disease.
According to Wonodi, most of the deaths occur among children under five years old, which she said are predominantly caused by Pneumococcus and Haemophilus Influennsa type B (HIB) bacteria infections, against which the HIB vaccine is said to be very effective.
Wonodi, who was speaking ahead of the 40th edition of the Paediatrics Association of Nigeria Conference (PANCOF), said the two organisms are the world's leading causes of severe pneumonia and meningitis.
"Pneumonia is a devastating disease for Nigerians. It has caused untimely death for too many children and crippled their families emotionally and financially," Wonodi said.
She, however, said morbidity and death from the HIB and Pneumococcus Bacteria are preventable, using various strategies.
"Many cases of pneumonia are preventable. Established prevention techniques, such as improving nutrition, exclusive breast feeding, reducing indoor air pollution and vaccination against measles and pertusis, have successfully lowered pneumonia risk among children," Wonodi said.
She said two of the most effective interventions for reducing pneumonia are vaccines that protect against HIB and Pneumococcus.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2009 Daily Independent. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
