The United Nations Children’s Fund on Wednesday said a new analysis showed that two million Nigerian children could die of pneumonia in the next 10 years unless prevention and treatment services were improved on.
UNICEF said, “Boosting efforts to fight pneumonia could avert over two million child deaths from pneumonia and other major diseases in Nigeria, new analysis has found.
“Forecasts show that 1.4 million children under the age of five could die from pneumonia over the next decade in Nigeria, on current trends – the highest number of any country in the world and more than 20 per cent of childhood deaths from pneumonia globally.
Quoting researchers findings, UNICEF said by 2030, that effect would be so large that pneumonia interventions alone would avert over two million predicted under-five child deaths in Nigeria from all causes combined.
UNICEF Nigeria’s Country Representative, Peter Hawkins, stated that the global health agency had a responsibility to do all it could to avert deaths by pneumonia in the country. Punch