The Kuduna State Primary Health Care Development Board (KDPHCDB), with support from Alive & Thrive and UNICEF, has oriented key stakeholders across the 23 LGAs on the forthcoming Maternal Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) week in the state.
The key stakeholders were the LGAs Nutrition Focal Persons (NFPs), Health Secretaries, Health Management Information Service Officers, and desk officers in the LGAs.
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The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the MNCH week is a week-long programme implemented in Nigeria, particularly in Kaduna State to improve the health and well-being of mothers, newborns, and children.
The orientation on Thursday in Kaduna was supported by other nutrition partners; Accelerating Nutrition Results in Nigeria (ANRiN) project, and Results for Development (R4D).
Speaking to newsmen at the sideline of the orientation, the Kaduna State Nutrition Officer (SNO), Ramatu Haruna, said the KDSPHCDB, has a good plan for the state, especially on pregnant women, lactating mothers and children of 0-59 months.
She said that the MNCH week, which is scheduled to start from June 10 to 14, was aimed at ensuring that there was improved service delivery and the attainment of universal coverage across the state.
Also the UNICEF Nutrition Specialist, Kaduna Field Office, Chinwe Ezeife, said the MNCH week gives them the opportunity to catch up with the children.
This also gives them the opportunity to immunise eligible children and receive other medical support.
She restated UNICEF’s commitment to the improvement of the nutritional status of women and children.
Ezeife said that was why they supported the MNCH week with many things such as health and nutrition supplies.
She added that UNICEF also provided funding and technical support.
Speaking further, the specialist disclosed that UNICEF would be supporting the state government with ‘Multiple Micronutrients Supplements (MMS)’ meant for pregnant women, in place of Iron Folic Acid (IFA).
She stressed the importance of scaling up MMS, adding that it has so many supplements upwards of 15 against the IFA that was currently in use.
Earlier, in her presentation, the Alive & Thrive State Team Lead, Sarah Kwasu, explained that the majority of micro-nutrients were increased during pregnancy.
”Many pregnant women do not meet their dietary requirements through food alone.
”It could have negative consequences on their health and the health of their baby,” she said.
Kwasu, therefore, said to fulfill their nutritional requirements, pregnant women were advised to consume a balanced, nutritious diet, in addition to daily adequate micro-nutrients supplementation.
She tasked the stakeholders at the training to support the promotion, uptake and utilization of MMS by creating demand through community mobilization.
The should also be supporting the capacity building of health care providers for effective service delivery.
Kwasu also tasked the stakeholders to support the proper documentation of appropriate indicators into the National Health Management Information System (NHMIS) tools.
This is in order to push the agenda at every opportunity by talking about it to get the state and LGA structures conscious of MMS.
One of the participants, Muhammad Tukur, the NFP of Zaria LGA, said they were making use of a recipe designed by ABU Zaria Teaching Hospital in order to prevent malnutrition.
He said the recipe prevents malnutrition from moderate to normal.
He explained that at the beginning, most of the children they used the recipe for were within 11.5cm, where after 12 weeks of intervention, almost all the children went above 14cm.
“It is a welcome development, we hope the government will increase efforts in the production of the recipe,”he said.
Tukur assured of his readiness to reach out to all the hard- to-reach areas in Zaria and other places in critical needs within the MNCH week.
Also, Fatima Muhammad, the NFP of Kaduna South, said they were into the treatment of moderate acute malnutrition which started in March.
She said seven children were drawn from each ward of the LGA for treatment, where they currently have only 37 children under treatment.
She restated their commitment to reach out to all the eligible children for services in the MNCH week.(NAN)
By Sani Idris
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