ABUJA – (Federal Ministry of Health Report) – The Nigerian Government through the Federal Ministry of Health has unveiled and disseminated the 2018 National Nutrition and Health Survey (NNHS) / SMART Survey report in Abuja.
While speaking at the dissemination meeting held recently, the Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole (Prof) said that the report being the third after the first and second in 2014 and 2015 respectively was to further demonstrate the Federal Government’s strong commitment towards strengthening data collection and utilization as an essential aspect of the ‘Saving One Million Lives Programme for Results’ (SOML-PforR).
Isaac Adewole informed that the NNHS was to provide up-to-date information on the situation of health and nutrition as well as measure the SOML-PforR key indicators and other health related indicators with particular focus on six key priority indicators that requires immediate action: Skilled Birth Attendance, Immunization/Pent A3, Contraceptive Prevalence Rate, Vitamin A, PMTCT and Insecticide-Treated Bed Nets (ITNS).
Adewole also noted that available reports from recent assessment of the States showed some improvement from the previous assessments, though there are still few challenges which he said could be resolved through continuous liaising with the National Programme Management Unit of the SOML-PforR.
The Minister also informed that the Health Ministry had procured some ‘Ready-to Use Therapeutic Foods’ (RUTF) in partnership with UNICEF for the treatment of Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) in six selected States. Adding, 12,000 cartons of the RUTF were handed over to States with the highest burden of Acute Malnutrition. He mentioed that the States included: Anambra, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Edo, Osun as well as FCT who got 5,000 cartons.
According to him, the six States were picked from 12 States with the highest burden of malnutrition selected from the six geopolitical zones of the country based on their readiness to participate in the programme.
In expressing commendation to the SOML-PforR for using statistics to monitor her programme and decision making, the Statistician General in the National Bureau of Statistics, Yemi Kale (Dr) noted that since the inception of the survey, the data quality had improved in relations to the judgement by the data quality score. This, he attributed to adequate training and use of electronic data tools which he said eliminated error.
Speaking on behalf of the Health Sector Development Partners, the representative of the Country Director of the World Bank, Benjamin (Dr) described the report as a great accomplishment by the Nigerian Government, saying every decision taken with basis on data ensured sustainable development in every strata of the economy. He further advised that the survey should be conducted annually.
The Country Representative of UNICEF, Mohammed Malinfa in his remarks inferred that nutrition was the foundation of life. He therefore appealed to the Federal Ministry of Health to release more funds for the purchase of the RUTF and other nutrition commodities. He indicated that this would go a long way in building sustainable human capital which according to him is the greatest asset of any nation.
Mohammed Malinfa revealed that the report was made possible by the successful collaboration of the Federal Ministry of Health through the ‘Saving One Million Lives Programme for Results (SOML-PforR), National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), National Population Commission (NPopC) and UNICEF.
