• Links country’s poor health indices to data challengesThe United Nations Children’s Fund, Representative in Nigeria, Ms. Cristian Munduate has emphasised the critical role of a robust primary healthcare system in tackling childhood illnesses and ensuring healthy development in Nigeria.
Munduate explained that open defecation leads directly to cholera and can be fatal. “Every community should prioritize establishing latrines to ensure basic sanitation. While upgraded facilities are ideal, even basic latrines significantly improve public health in many Nigerian communities.
She said the media must advocate, parents must vaccinate, and the government must invest, insisting that “only through this collective responsibility can we create a future where preventable diseases no longer threaten children’s lives”.Munduate who notes that the best way to nourish a child in the first two years of life was through breastfeeding, added that, many women don’t breastfeed for different reasons that are not scientifically proven.
When you see adults, healthy adults, not obese, tall men and women. You can make a poll and you can ask them if they were breastfed. Well, not five years, but two. It’s important. I think this is part of the sort of investigations that needs to be done.” She charged the media to inform people because media is about information and communication.Discussing HPV vaccination, Munduate emphasised that family upbringing shapes a child’s values.
Noting that while the under-five mortality rate shows gradual improvement, she expressed concern about stagnant newborn mortality rates over the past decade, adding that in a country with 8 million birth rate annually, this lack of progress is unacceptable.