Benue State Commissioner for Health and Human Services, Joseph Ngbea, has revealed that about 2,300 children under the age of five die daily of preventive diseases in Nigeria.
Ngbea made the disclosure while flagging off the first round of Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health Week (MNCHW), in Makurdi.
According to the commissioner, no fewer than 145 women of childbearing age die daily in the country of preventive diseases.
He lamented that “Nigeria has one of the highest death rates in the world among young children and women of childbearing age, and the trend is not improving satisfactorily.”
While quoting the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey, Ngbea said, “These deaths are often preventable with relatively simple measures. NDHS, in 2018, estimated that Nigeria makes up only two per cent of the World’s population but accounts for 14 per cent of the global maternal death burden.
“One in every eight