By Joel Ajayi

In it’s continuous effort and determination in reducing Neonatal, Child and maternal mortality to the barest minimum in Nigeria, the National Population Commission, NPC, has embarked on 2024 Verbal and Social Autopsy Study, VASA, a study it believed will go a long way to assist policy makers and other Stakeholders.

Speaking at the press conference on Friday, in Abuja, Chairman of the NPC, Honourable Nasir Isa Kwarra, pointed out that under-5 mortality in the country is high at 110 deaths per 1,000 births, according to UN report.

Kwarra, said that the VASA data will be used by policy makers and other stakeholders to formulate policies, design and implement programmes that will go a long way in reducing Neonatal, Child and Maternal Mortality to the barest minimum in Nigeria.

According to him, VASA is a research study that seeks to obtain data to determine the causes and contributory factors to deaths in children under-5 years of age and in women of reproductive age.

In this vein, he said that “the objectives of the study includes the provision of up-to-date information on early childhood and maternal mortality, cultural, behavioural, social and health system factors of neonatal (death of a live-born infant within the first 28 days of life), infant and under-five mortality, and women of reproductive age. The study will be conducted in households where the deaths were recorded and consent received for revisit during the 2023-2024 Nigeria Demographic Health Survey, NDHS.

“As the agency of government with the constitutional mandate of generating and providing demographic data for planning purposes, the National Population Commission in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Health and other key Ministries, Departments and Agencies is conducting the 2024 VASA study to assist policy makers with reliable data to plan and formulate policies for the health sector in relation to maternal and child health in Nigeria.

“The result of the study will provide national and zonal level estimates of the major causes of under-five and maternal mortality in the country. Furthermore, it will make available patterns of care-seeking, social factors, and interventions received as related to deaths in children less than five years of age, along with qualitative narratives of factors associated with these patterns”.

Besides, the chairman said “as a follow up to the 2023-2024 NDHS, one randomly selected death in a household with an under-5 death were sampled from the NDHS. A total of 2,342 adult female deaths and 2,537 under-5 mortality cases were selected out of which 31 percent of the under-5 deaths (969) are Neonates while 69 percent (1,567) are children.

“For the 2024 VASA study, there will be two sets of interviewing teams on the field. These are qualitative and quantitative teams. The quantitative team will focus more on responses from caregivers in the households while the qualitative team will focus on group discussions and in-depth interviews within the community in addition to the household interviews.

“Based on the reported cases of under-5 deaths per state, 26 teams each made up of 4 female interviewers, one team supervisor, one quality manager were selected to move round the country for the data collection exercise that began on November 4th and will last till December 15th 2024.

“There is no gain stating the fact that under-5 mortality in Nigeria is high at 110 deaths per 1000 births according to the 2023-2024 NDHS. What needs stating unequivocally is that every available tool must be deployed to combat and curb the challenge in our society. This therefore, brings us to the imperatives of generating reliable data on the causes and determinants of neonatal, infant and child mortality in Nigeria.

“The Commission is strategically prepared and committed to generating this data to aid planning in the health sector, to this end, all necessary steps have been put in place to make sure that the 2024 VASA survey is successfully implemented”.

Kwarra, then urged government officials at the states and local government levels, security agencies, traditional rulers, religious leaders, community leaders and members of the press to give all necessary support to the success of the exercise.

“It is in realisation of this, that I wish to call on the patriotic fervor of members of the fourth estate of the realm to take the message to all the nooks and crannies of the country by propagating the narrative of cooperation and ownership by the citizens, to participate in the 2024 VASA survey to generate credible data for effective planning and sustainable development in Nigeria”.

Meanwhile, the 2024 edition of the VASA survey is the third in the series conducted by the National Population Commission. The first time the study was conducted in Nigeria was in the year 2014 and subsequently in 2019.

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