CHILD MORTALITY

According to WHO, Nigeria loses about 2,300 under-five year olds every single day making it the second largest contributor to the under–five and maternal mortality rate in the world.

Although analyses of recent trends show that the country is making progress in cutting down infant and under-five mortality rates, the pace was still too slow to achieve the Millennium Development Goals of reducing child mortality by a third in 2015.

Preventable or treatable infectious diseases such as malaria, pneumonia, diarrhoea, measles and HIV/AIDS account for more than 70 per cent of the estimated one million under-five deaths in Nigeria.

The deaths of newborn babies in Nigeria represent a quarter of the total number of deaths of children under-five. The majority of these occur within the first week of life, mainly due to complications during pregnancy and delivery reflecting the intimate link between newborn survival and the quality of maternal care. Main causes of neonatal deaths are birth asphyxia, severe infection including tetanus and premature birth.

Child mortality rates were generally lower in the southern part of the country then the north, with some states recording as much as 5 times the rate of that of Osun, which had the lowest child mortality rate in the country.