An International Non Governmental Orgainsation, Save the Children, says children who are severely malnourished are four times more likely to die from pneumonia.
The Country Director, Save the Children, Mr Ben Foot, said this on Monday, at an event organised by the NGO to mark the World Pneumonia Day with the theme: “Stopping Pneumonai ‘’ in Abuja.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that pneumonia is an infection that inflames the air sacs in one or both lungs, which may fill with fluid or pus causing cough with phlegm or pus, fever, chills, and difficulty breathing.
Foot said that a study carried out by Save the Children revealed that globally, 51 million children suffered from wasting, and they face grave health risks in 2017.
He said though pneumococcal vaccines (PCVs) could prevent most bacterial pneumonia cases, saying that globally 76 million children aged between 12 and 123 months were unimmunized in 2017.
“One-third of children with pneumonia-like symptoms do not seek appropriate care
“Antibiotics, which could prevent 70 per cent of all pneumonia deaths, cost just $0.50 on the average and are frequently not accessible or often unavailable.
“Poor children are most at risk from pneumonia but health systems disproportionately provide for wealthier children.
“Pneumonia claims the lives of more children around the world than any other infectious disease, the vast majority of those killed by it are poor and living in low and middle income countries.’’
Foot also said that every nation should make it a priority to ensure a strong, accessible primary healthcare systems for all communities.
He said that pneumonia could not be treated in isolation so tackling it required a strong a healthcare system that reached the most disadvantaged children.
He advised the Federal Government to ensure that at least one per cent of consolidated revenue provided for the National Health Act was budgeted and released yearly to provide basic healthcare at the primary level.
He also urged the government to support the creation of a Trust Fund for immunisation to ensure sustainable funding for vaccines and encourage public and private sector to invest in local vaccines.
He called on the government to partner with pharmaceutical companies provide low cost amoxicillin dispersible tablet and install oxygen at primary health care centres.
Also speaking, Dr Emedo Emmanuel, Health Specialist UNICEF, said that pneumonia was a major killer of children in Nigeria, yet it was under reported, under recognised and under diagnosed.
Emmanuel said that for a disease that ranked among the highest killer of children in Nigeria, there was need for adequate attention in terms of investment, advocacy, knowledge creation and action on ground to save children.
“Be that as it may, there is equally need to invest a lot more, focus a lot more on where the needs are.
“We have identified that pneumonia is one of the three big killers of children in Nigeria so that requires adequate attention in terms of policy action and investment,’’ he said
Emmanuel also said that there were areas of gap in terms of intervention against pneumonia, like immunisation of children, adding that Nigeria needed to improve her coverage of basic vaccines.
He said that these vaccines were especially those ones that equally affected or have implication for pneumonia, things like measles, vaccine, penta vaccine, PCV vaccine needed to be improved on.
Dr adamu Isah, Chief of Party Pneumonia Project, Save the Children, said that the workshop was specifically organised to raise awareness about the very big problem that affected a lot of Nigerian children.
Isah said that pneumonia killed more than a 120,000 children in 2017 and it had now become number one killer even worse that malaria and HIV in children under five years old .
He, however, said that by promoting healthy nutrition, exclusive breast feeding for six month, complimentary feeding, hand washing, safe drinking water, sanitation as well as prompt care seeking behaviour the disease would be curbed.
He also said that another way to prevent it is through immunisation adding “this is so important because if we are able to do that at the right time ,we will definitely prevent most of pneumonia.’’
Isah also stressed the need to have a health system where pneumina could be easily and quickly recognised not just by doctors but by other health workers because it was hard for most health workers to recognise it.
NAN reports that the World Health Organisation (WHO) in May 2018, reported that about seven million adults in 2017 died of pneumonia health related cases in the world.