Business Day
Almost 185 children under the age of five die every day from pneumonia due to air pollution in Nigeria, the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) has disclosed.
As the world commemorates World Pneumonia Day, UNICEF revealed that Nigeria has the highest number of overall air pollution-related pneumonia deaths of children under-five in the world, and the highest number of household air pollution-related pneumonia deaths among children under-five.
In Nigeria, 78 percent of air pollution-related pneumonia deaths are among children under five – the highest proportion across all countries, according to the Global Burden of Disease (GBD 2019).
Deaths of Nigerian children under-five due to overall air pollution-related pneumonia were 67,416 in 2019 while deaths of Nigerian children under-five due to household-specific air pollution-related pneumonia were 49,591 during the same year, the agency revealed.
Peter Hawkins, UNICEF Representative in Nigeria in a statement on Friday said the majority of children from air pollution are in the household, including those from cooking over open fires or cookstoves in the home.
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“This is a travesty – for their families and for Nigeria – especially because the vast majority of these deaths are preventable.
“It is critical that the government introduce policies to reduce the major causes of air pollution-related pneumonia deaths among Nigerians – especially children, who bear the biggest burden,” Hawkins said.
“One of the important ways we can do this is to increase the proportion of Nigerian households with access to clean cooking fuels and technologies, by increasing the use of LPG gas for cooking and helping families finance the cost of clean stoves and fuels.”
“We must also scale up services to diagnose and treat pneumonia, and improve nutrition, vaccine coverage, and breastfeeding rates – all of which improve children’s health and immune systems, reducing the risk of children dying from pneumonia if they do contract it,” he added.
In 17 countries across Africa, air pollution contributes to more than 50 percent of pneumonia deaths. Most of these deaths are among children and due to household air pollution – through deaths from outdoor air pollution are rising, according to the GBD.
