…Babies may die after 55 years – UN agency
Marcus Fatunmole (Abuja)
No fewer than 25,685 babies are delivered across Nigeria on January 1, 2019, the United Nations Children Fund, UNICEF, has said.
Unfortunately, they may die before 2075 (living only for 55 years) given the present life expectancy ratio in the country, the organization said.
Sadly still, they will only enjoy higher life expectancy than those born same day in three countries namely Central African Republic, Chad and Sierra Leone, according to the agency. But child born that day in Denmark is likely to live until the 22nd century.
Number of children born on the New Year day in Nigeria amount to 6.5 percent of estimated 395,072 babies born same day globally, UNICEF said in a statement it made available to this newspaper by its country office earlier this week.
Quoting the World Data Lab and UN’s World Population Prospects (2017), UNICEF noted that babies born on 2019 New Year day in Nigeria are 40 percent of all those born in West and Central Africa, and more than 23 percent of those born in sub-Saharan Africa.
Nigerian New Year day babies are third leading, worldwide, though the nation is 7thamong those with highest population, globally.
On January 2019, Nigeria has more babies than Pakistan (15,112) Indonesia (13,256) the United States (11086) Democratic Republic of Congo (10,053) and Bangladesh (8,428)
Only India (69,944) and China (44,940) have more children than Nigeria on this day, according to UNICEF,
The births in Nigeria and these other seven countries on this day represent over half of the world’s births same day, UNICEF noted.
According to the agency, globally in 2017, about one million babies died the day they were born, and 2.5 million in just their first month of life.
In Nigeria, each year, about 262,000 babies die at birth, the world’s second highest national total, while every day in the country, 257 babies die within their first month of life.
Among these children, most died from preventable causes such as premature birth, complications during delivery, and infections like sepsis and pneumonia, a violation of their basic right to survival, said UNICEF.
UNICEF Nigeria’s Acting Representative, Pernille Ironside,, was quoted in the release as saying: “We can and must do more to ensure that children born in Nigeria survive their first day of life – and are able to survive and thrive for many months and years to come.
“In Nigeria today, only one out of every three babies is delivered in a health centre, decreasing a new-born baby’s chance of survival. This is just one of the issues that need to be addressed in order to improve the chances of survival of those babies born today and every day.”
He added: “This New Year Day, let’s all make a resolution to fulfil every right of every child, starting with the right to survive. “We can save millions of babies if we invest in training and equipping local health workers so that every new-born is born into a safe pair of hands.”
UNICEF reminded that 2019 also marks 30th anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which it said it would be commemorating with worldwide events throughout the year.
It said under the Convention, governments committed to, among other things, taking measures to save every child by providing good quality health care.
It furthered that over the past three decades, the world had seen remarkable progress in child survival, cutting the number of children worldwide who die before their fifth birthday by more than half.
“But there has been slower progress for new-borns. Babies dying in the first month account for 47 per cent of all deaths among children under five.
UNICEF’s Every Child Alive campaign calls for immediate investment to deliver affordable, quality health care solutions for every mother and newborn. These include a steady supply of clean water and electricity at health facilities, the presence of a skilled health attendant during birth, ample supplies and medicines to prevent and treat complications during pregnancy, delivery and birth, and empowered adolescent girls and women who can demand better quality of health services.
