By Hadiza Ibrahim
About 1.1 million children in Anambra State will receive Vitamin A supplements, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has said.
Ngozi Onuorah, nutrition specialist at the Enugu office of the world body, gave the figure at the flag off of the Anambra State weeklong campaign for maternal 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 Ngozi, the weeklong campaign would bring primary health care 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 bi-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 stated, while observing that there is a lot of Iron deficiency anaemia in children in the state, adding that out of 334,838 pregnant women in the state, 170,148, which is about 51%, are anaemic.
