NO fewer than 1.1 million children in Anambra State have been targeted to receive Vitamin A supplements from the United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF, in the next one week.
The nutrition specialist at the UNICEF Enugu office of the world body, Ngozi Onuorah gave the figure at the flag off of the Anambra State weeklong campaign for material and child health programme at Umueri in Anambra East local government area of the state.
The programme was planned by the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, NPHCDA, in collaboration with the state PHCDA, the ministry of health, with support from UNICEF, World Health Organization, WHO, and other partners.
According to Onuorah, the weeklong campaign would bring primary health care, PHC, interventions to the doorsteps of mothers and their children. She said: "It is a high impact programme anchored by Vitamin A supplementation and deworming, which are the two given to children by annually. Vitamin A alone has the singular potential to prevent all causes of infant deaths by 23-26 percent.
"It boosts the child's immune system and prevents a lot of infections, including measles attack."
She also observed that there is a lot of Iron deficiency anaemia in children in Anambra State, adding that out of 334,838 pregnant women in the state, 170,148, which is about 51%, are anaemic.
"The Vitamin A target is for children aged 6-59 months and they are about 1,106,080 in Anambra State. We have given the state a ceiling of 85% to achieve, which is over 998000, but we are hoping to achieve 100%.
"It requires robust sensitization and UNICEF and government have supported town criers, jingles and many social mobilization activities to ensure that all communities in the state participate effectively. Our expectation is that all children in the state will be covered", Onuorah added.
The Chief of UNICEF Enugu Office, Juliet Chiluwe described the programme as a significant milestone for attaining the goal of reaching all the pregnant women and targeted children.
"The turnout is very encouraging and we commend the political will of the state government and the community leaders. "The position of UNICEF is that every child should be provided with proper diet to ensure that child's rights are attained.
"UNICEF has been a key figure from the inception of the campaign. We have been in Anambra for over 12 years and we have been working with Rural Water and Sanitation, RUWASA, State Emergency Management Agency, SEMA, and in the education sector. We are also involved in the area of public health services and our target is to ensure that every child benefits from the programme," Chiluwe said.
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Anambra State Deputy Governor, Dr. Onyekachukwu Ibezim, who flagged off the programme on behalf of Governor Chukwuma Soludo, said the children need supplements to balance their diets which, he noted, is why the programme is very important.
He also advised mothers to always endeavor to complete all the immunization exercises for the benefit of their children and urged the people to support all the health programmes being executed by the state government and the donor agencies.
He thanked UNICEF for supporting the programme as it has been doing with other programmes, especially in helping to mitigate the problem of flood in the state.
Ibezim urged the local government chairmen in the state to monitor the exercise to ensure its success in all parts of the state.
