The United Nations Children Education Fund said it is targeting over one million children in the first round of the 2024 Maternal Newborn and Child Health Week for various health interventions programmes.

UNICEF Nutrition Specialist, Enugu Field Office, Dr Ngozi Onuorah disclosed this on Tuesday during a press briefing on a one-day public awareness creation for the first round of the health week.

The nutrition expert said the exercise would be done in partnership with the Enugu State Government through the state Ministry of Health.

Ms Onuorah said that 996, 160 children would be targeted particularly for Vitamin A and 840,000 children would be targeted for deworming.

According to her, Vitamin A has the potential to prevent all causes of child mortality by 26 per cent.

“We will use the Maternal Newborn and Child Health Week to increase the number of children that receive Vitamin A and to ensure that no child is left untouched. Also, to increase the number of children that receive routine immunisations,” she said.

She said that the weeklong event was aimed at increasing the level of services that were provided to increase indices of health and nutrition intervention in the state.

“Over 63 per cent of the children in Enugu State have been denied appropriate eating practices, exclusive breastfeeding; these children are from six months to 59 months. Only 37 per cent of them received minimum acceptable diets,” she said.

Earlier, the Enugu State Commissioner for Health, Prof. Ikechukwu Obi, called on everyone to take part in the optimal intervention that would be given to them in their various healthcare facilities in their communities.

He said that there was no volatile area in the state, adding that there were healthcare workers working in those healthcare facilities.

“The healthcare workers in all the health facilities in the 17 Local Government Areas in the state have been trained for the optimised services. The commodities that will be used for the healthcare week have been collected and taken to the health facilities in the 17 LGAs,” he said.

The commissioner urged mothers to go with their children to their various healthcare facilities in their communities and partake in the intervention that the government had joined its partners to make available.

The Executive Secretary, Enugu State Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Dr Ifeyinwa Ani-Osheku, said that the nutrition status of Enugu had not been encouraging as a study of 2018 by the nation’s nutritional body showed.

She said that any investment in nutrition was a right step in the right direction, stressing that nutrition provided key elements that helped the child to fight all killer infections and diseases.

“We are going to use this one week to carry out an outreach in all the nook and crannies of the state, and will provide vitamin A to the children during the week. They will also provide deworming drugs to the children,” she said.

She said that anaemia was also a big health problem as it was a nutritional deficiency in women.

The programme is going to be conducted in all the 17 LGAs of the state free of charge, urging mothers to endeavour to take their children to health facilities in their communities.

(NAN)