Pulse.ng : KDPHCDB, Alive & Thrive, UNICEF orients key stakeholders on MNCH week in Kaduna

By Sani Idris

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 fourth coming 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 state that go to LGAs to collate all data during implementation and send to the state.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), reports that the MNCH week is a weeklong program 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, supported by UNICEF & Alive and Thrive, have 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 10 to 14 of June in state state, was aimed at ensuring that there is service delivery and its universal coverage across the state within the five days intervention.

Also the UNICEF Nutrition Specialist, Kaduna Field Office, Chinwe Ezeife, said the MNCH week gives them the opportunity to do a catch up with the children, thereby giving them opportunity to immunise eligible children and receive other medical support.

Restating UNICEF's committment to improvement of the nutritional status of women and children, she said it was why they support the MNCH week with many things such as health and nutrition supplies.

She added that UNICEF also provide funding and technical support.

Speaking further, the specialist disclosed that UNICEF would be supporting the Kaduna State Government with Multiple Micronutrients Supplement (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 supplement upwards of 15 against the IFA that is currently being in use.

Earlier, in her presentation, the Alive & Thrive State Team Lead, Sarah Kwasu, explained that the majority of micronutrients are increased during pregnancy and many pregnant women do not meet their dietary requirements through food alone.

She stressed that, it could have negative consequences on their health and the health
of their baby.

Kwasu therefore said to fulfill their nutritional requirements, pregnant women are advised to consume balanced, nutritious diet, in addition to daily adequate micronutrient supplementation.

She tasked stakeholders at the training to support the promotion, uptake and utilization of MMS in
Kaduna State by creating demand through community mobilization, supporting the capacity building of health care providers for effective service delivery.

She also tasked the stakeholders to support proper documentation of appropriate indicators into the National Health Management Information System
(NHMIS) tools and push the agenda at every opportunity by talking about it to get the state
and LGA structures conscious of MMS.

One of the participant, 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 Government will increase efforts in the production of the recipe,"he said.

He 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 treatment of moderate acute malnutrition which started in March and about to round off.

She said seven children were drawn from each ward of the LGA for treatment, where they are currently have only 37 children under treatment.

She restated their committment to reach out to all the eligible children for services in the MNCH week.(NAN)