In a new revelation, Nigeria’s Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Muhammad Pate, has disclosed that about 850,000 Nigerian children under the age of five die every year most from preventable causes such as pneumonia and premature birth complications.
“Data from the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) show that under-five mortality has declined from 201 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2000 to 110 in 2023,” Pate said. “In spite of this modest progress, approximately 850,000 preventable newborn and under-five deaths occur each year.”
“Nigeria is not yet on track to meet the SDG target of less than 25 deaths per 1,000 live births by 2030,” he added.
“The global community has mobilised strongly against malaria, polio, tuberculosis, and HIV, but childhood pneumonia has not received the attention it deserves,” he lamented.
“This innovation has strengthened the capacity of secondary and tertiary health workers to manage severe pneumonia, reducing under-five mortality from 132 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2018 to 110 in 2024,” he said.
“Each year, we lose about 280,000 newborns within the first 28 days of life due to prematurity and another 162,000 children to pneumonia,” he said,
describing the losses as a heavy national burden.
“It will establish a hospital-based sentinel surveillance system across 12 tertiary facilities nationwide to generate reliable data for research, policy, and intervention planning,” he added.
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