World Pneumonia Day: NGO wants increased funding to eradicate childhood pneumonia

The Partnership for Advocacy in Child and Family Health (PACFaH), a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), has urged the Federal Government to allocate more resources toward eradicating pneumonia among children.

Mr Remi Adeseun, Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN)-PACFaH Progamme Director, made the call at the commemoration of World Pneumonia Day on Saturday in Abuja.

The theme of the event is “Mainstreaming/Prioritising Pneumonia in National Health Planning.’’

Adeseun said that Nov. 12 every year was set aside to raise awareness on pneumonia the world’s leading infectious and second killer of children under the age of five.

He explained that a lot of people were ignorant of the death toll caused by the disease hence the number of cases of the scourge was increasing daily.

Adeseun, however, urged governments at all levels to take the lead in sensitising the public to the preventive and curative measures of the disease, as it was with malaria and HIV and AIDS.

He decried existing situation where pneumonia had been over-shadowed as a priority on global health due to lack of awareness of its deadly impact, adding that affordable treatment and preventable option were readily available.

The director, who lauded government’s interventions through various eradication programmes on malaria and HIV/AIDs morbidity and mortality across the country, appealed that more attention should be extended to pneumonia and diarrhea eradication.

He said such eradication effort could come through “immediate implementation of childhood pneumonia guideline as recommended by World Health Organisation (WHO) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

He explained that the bodies recommended that Amoxicillin Dispersible Tablet should be used as the first-line drug management of childhood pneumonia.

According to Adeseun, with adequate funding and attention, there would be drastic reduction in the incidence of this preventable and treatable disease in the country.

“The PSN-PACFaH project urges Nigerian government to strengthen the coordination of efforts geared toward ending childhood pneumonia in the country.

“Since a lot of factors contribute to its prevalence in the world and Nigeria particularly, no single intervention can effectively prevent, treat or control its spread.

“The onus lies on the government to take concrete steps, bring to the table, mainstream and coordinate all donor and government-led efforts in the fight to end preventable and treatable pneumonia death in our great nation.

“There is urgent need to increase the health sector budget and to allocate more resources toward childhood pneumonia mainstreaming along with the other eradication programmes like Tuberculosis, Polio, HIV/AIDs, among others,’’ Adeseun said. (NAN)

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