The Federal Government has lost over 25
health workers, mostly poliomyelitis vaccinators, to the violent
activities of the Boko Haram Islamic sect and other forms of insurgency
since the beginning of this year, officials said.
The Executive Director of the National
Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Dr. Ado Muhammad, who said this
in an interview with our correspondent in Abuja, however expressed
optimism that the death of the health workers would not stop government
from providing healthcare services in the North-East, home to the Boko
Haram insurgents.
“In recent times, this year (2014)
alone, we must have lost more than 25 health workers. We are committed
to saving lives and will continue to make sacrifice. I want to say that
we have lost quite a number of health workers in these locations
(North-East); for us we must see that as a sacrifice and continue to
save lives in Nigeria,” Muhammad said.
He also said the government had signed a
$14m project for the scaling up of access to zinc and Oral Rehydration
Salts to accelerate treatment of diarrhoea in children aged under five
years in five states of Bauchi, Cross River, Kaduna, Katsina and Niger.
He said the choice of the five states was based on the high burden of diarrhoea among children under five.
“The burden is high in these states for a
number of reasons; we have some challenges in terms of awareness, we
have challenges in terms of appropriate treatment, we also have
challenges in terms of health system.
“There is no single factor that is
countable but a combination of factors Punch said. This program is set to tackle
these problems and we believe that with these states accounting for 30
per cent of diarrhoea disease in this country, simple intervention will
reduce it by 90 per cent and save more lives”, Muhammad stated.
The NPHCDA ED said the project would run
for the next three years and that it would work with states to
institutionalise the use of zinc and ORS in every primary institution in
the country.
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