EDITORIAL: Pneumonia and Nigeria’s children
Recently, the Executive Chairman of Bauchi State Primary Healthcare Agency (BSPHA), Adamu Ibrahim Gamawa, disclosed more than 177,000 Nigeria children under five years die from pneumonia and other diseases every year. Speaking at a stakeholders meeting in Bauchi, Gamawa said investigation shows that Nigeria is among 10 countries whose children not more than five years old are at a great risk of dying from Pneumonococcal diseases. Buttressing this scary statistics is the fact that Nigeria has the second highest burden of childhood mortality from pneumonia, after India.
It is estimated that pneumonia causes 17 per cent (127,000) of child deaths annually in Nigeria. From the year 2000 to 2013, the number of under-five children dying annually from pneumonia has remained practically unchanged. In contrast, child deaths from malaria and measles declined by 34 per cent and 97 per cent respectively. Severe pneumonia in childhood is associated with increased long-term respiratory morbidity and disease burden and is more fatal than non-severe disease. Furthermore, it is estimated that 56 million episodes of lung infections occur among Nigerian children every year.
According to health experts, pneumonia is the inflammation of lung parenchyma due to pathogenic microorganisms such as bacteria, viruses and fungi. It is also a condition typically associated with fever and other respiratory symptoms. There is no denying the fact that pneumonia is an economic burden for families and communities, contributing to the cycle of poverty.
Incidentally, many pneumonia-causing pathogens, particularly those found in hospital settings, are resistant to all but the strongest forms of antibiotics. Understanding the epidemiology of pneumonia has been identified as a pressing priority for public health research. However, medical authorities insist that immunisation with Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) remains a safe and effective mean of protecting children against pneumonia diseases.
In Nigeria, the fight against the disease has met with varying degrees of success. For example, the federal government in 2012, launched the Saving One Million Lives Initiative (SOML), aimed at increasing access to proven interventions across six maternal newborn and child health programme areas. The core strategy is to employ performance management to drive accountability and action to reach specific targets on coverage of interventions and number of lives saved.
While we applaud the continuing initiatives by both the Federal and state governments at combating this child killer disease, it is imperative that they come up with effective case management strategies to ensure that children receive the right treatment for pneumonia quickly. Moreover, there should be concerted sensitisation of Nigerians, especially the low-income groups on the need to adopt improved hygienic lifestyles and increase vaccine intake for their children.
In addition, women must be encouraged and supported to feed their children only breast milk for the first six months of life and give appropriate complementary feeding when they are older. The good news is that that pneumonia is preventable. A crucial part of the solution is to recognise the danger and take adequate preventive measures. By focusing on children in the poorest households, many more lives can be saved.
It is also important to increase family awareness of the dangers of pneumonia and the critical importance of seeking care quickly and exploring new models of service delivery that better integrate pneumonia diagnosis treatment with the delivery of vaccines. Until this happens, pneumonia will remain Nigeria’s biggest and most silent killer of infants and little children.
