Kogi partners USAID on maternal, child survival

The Kogi State Government, on Tuesday, entered into a partnership with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), in order to advocate and strengthen mother-and-child survival in pregnancy and child-birth.

Receiving the USAID team on behalf of the State Government in his office in Lokoja, the state capital, on Tuesday, the Deputy Governor, Elder Simon Achuba, said the US agency had, in many ways, impacted well on the life of the people in the state.

He said that the state was not backward in the area of maternal health, as according to him, many women in the state now go to the hospitals to give birth, unlike the traditional and unsafe method used in the past.

The Deputy Governor said, as a result of the continuous awareness on the maternal and child health in the state, more women were realising the implication of going to the traditional birth attendants for child-birth.

He assured that the present administration of the state led by Governor Yahaya Bello, would strengthen the State Ministry of Health to maintain the feat on effective service delivery in the State, stating that with the USAID partnership, the state would attain a new height in the provision of adequate health services.

Speaking earlier, the Senior Programme Manager, Integrated Health, Population and Nutrition (HPN) office, and the leader of the USAID team, Dr. Joseph Monehin, said the team was in the state to seal the working relationship deal with the state and equally distribute insecticide treated net to all pregnant women.