Wellbeing of women, children still an issue – Aisha Buhari

Wife of the President, Mrs. Aisha Muhammadu Buhari has called on states yet to flag off the Maternal and Child Health Week (MNCH) week activities for this year to flag off the programme for the benefit of women and children.

Making the call during the flag off of the Maternal and Child Health Week in Jada, Adamawa State on Monday, she noted that despite the significant progress made towards improving the health and wellbeing of women and children, more needed to be done.

Represented by Mrs Grace Chamah, the Wife of the President said the MNCH week is a bi-annual event to be conducted in all the 36 states and the FCT, with the aim of improving access and utilization of essential maternal and child health care services, which ultimately will contribute to reduction in maternal and child mortality.

“I am aware that Nigeria is one of the countries with high maternal and child mortality both at continental and global levels, and it’s also painfully true that some of the causes of deaths among these groups are preventable.” She said.

She added that simple interventions such as increasing awareness about the importance of health and healthcare services, provision of routine antenatal care services, routine immunizations, de-worming of children and Vitamin A supplementation can significantly contribute to reduction of maternal and child mortality.

The MNCH week, she held, provides a good platform for the delivery of these simple life saving interventions.

Mrs Buhari commended Adamawa State and others that had flagged off the week, saying they would witness improved health outcomes even as she called on those yet to do so to flag it off for the benefit of their women and children.

Earlier during the event, wife of the Governor of Adamawa State, Mrs Maryam Muhammad Umar Jibrilla Bindow said the MNCH week was a giant stride in the effort to checkmate all health challenges affecting mothers and their newborn babies.

She said the exercise was taking place simultaneously in all the 21 local government areas of the state “to avail us ample opportunity to have our children aged 0-59 months vaccinated against killer diseases.”

Mrs Jibrilla-Bindow said Vitamin A, de-worming tablets, routine immunization, ante-natal care and iron foliate among others, would be provided during the exercise and appealed to mothers to take advantage of the opportunity.

The state Commissioner for Health, Dr. Fatima Abubakar, said Schistosomiasis has an endemic infestation in the state and therefore that the top three LGAs (Demsa, Toungo and Jada) had been earmarked to receive priority attention.

Highlights of the event were the handing over of the essential drugs from Future Assured Programme to the wife of the Governor for onward distribution to beneficiaries. Wife of the Governor also conducted a deworming exercise on pupils of Central Primary School, Jada.