The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have both called for more resources and commitment to tackle the global malnutrition crisis.

UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore and WHO Director General Dr. Tedros Afhanom Ghebreyesus made this appeal on a joint statement made accessible to journalists in Abuja on the occasion of World Breastfeeding Week.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and World Health Organization (WHO) have urged for increased funding and commitment to combat the worldwide malnutrition epidemic.

The statement read in bits; “Breastfeeding is central to realising this commitment.

“Initiation of breastfeeding within the first hour of birth, followed by exclusive breastfeeding for six months and continued breastfeeding for up to two years or beyond offer a powerful line of defence against all forms of child malnutrition, including wasting and obesity. Breastfeeding also acts as babies’ first vaccine, protecting them against many common childhood illnesses.

“While there has been progress in breastfeeding rates in the last four decades – with a 50 per cent increase in the prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding globally – the COVID-19 pandemic highlights the fragility of those gains.

“In many countries, the pandemic has caused significant disruptions in breastfeeding support services, while increasing the risk of food insecurity and malnutrition. Several countries have reported that producers of baby foods have compounded these risks by invoking unfounded fears that breastfeeding can transmit COVID-19 and marketing their products as a safer alternative to breastfeeding.”

The statement continued; “In Nigeria, where 1 in 8 children do not reach their 5th birthday and 3 in 10 children are stunted, optimal breastfeeding practices are known to reduce neonatal and child morbidities and mortality rates as well as stunting reduction. Optimal nutrition provided by breastfeeding along with nurturing, care, and stimulation strengthens a child’s brain development with positive impacts that endure over a lifetime.

“Available statistics in Nigeria reveal that the average duration of exclusive breastfeeding is approximately 3 months and only 3 out of every 10 children under 6 months of age were exclusively breastfed (29%). This is an improvement from 17% in 2013 to 29% in 2018 (NDHS,2013; 2018), however, this still falls significantly below the target of 50% set by the World Health Assembly to be achieved in 2025 and the SDG target for 2030. The percentage of children who were breastfed within 1 hour of birth (42%) remains less than 50%. Breastfeeding rates in Nigeria reduce with age – 83% of the children are breastfed up to one year, while 28% are breastfeeding till 2 years. Furthermore, the proportion of children who are not breastfeeding increases with age.

“This year’s World Breastfeeding Week, under its theme ‘Protect Breastfeeding: A Shared Responsibility’ is a time to revisit the commitments made at the start of this year by prioritizing breastfeeding-friendly environments for mothers and babies. This includes: Ensuring the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes established to protect mothers from aggressive marketing practices by the baby food industry is fully implemented by governments, health workers and industry.

Ensuring health care workers have the resources and information they need to effectively support mothers to breastfeed, including through global efforts such as the Baby-friendly Hospital Initiative, and guidelines on breastfeeding counselling.

Ensuring employers allow women the time and space they need to breastfeed; including paid parental leave with longer maternity leave; safe places for breastfeeding in the workplace; access to affordable and good-quality childcare; and universal child benefits and adequate wages.

The statement further reads that; “As we approach the UN Food Systems Summit in September and the Tokyo Nutrition for Growth Summit in December, governments, donors, civil society and the private sector all have an opportunity to make smart investments and commitments to tackle the global malnutrition crisis – including protecting, promoting and supporting breastfeeding – through stronger policies, programmes and actions.

“Now is not the time to lower our ambitions. Now is the time to aim high. We are committed to making the Nutrition for Growth Year of Action a success by ensuring that every child’s right to nutritious, safe and affordable food and adequate nutrition is realized from the beginning of life, starting with breastfeeding.”

Director General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Prof Moji Adeyeye, has slammed the United States of America and European Union member countries for continuing to reject Nigerian food and agricultural commodities due to poor quality.

She urged all port regulatory bodies in charge of ensuring high-quality imports and exports to find urgent and long-term solutions to the European Commission’s RASFF Border Rejection Notifications on Nigerian commodities.

She made this known while speaking on Quality and Safety of Export Food Trade at a virtual technical roundtable meeting with other federal government agencies like Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development MARD, Foreign Portfolio Investments FPIS, Standard Organization of Nigeria SON, Nigeria Export Promotion Council NEPC, and Institute of Public Analysts of Nigeria IPAN, amongst others, Adeyeye lamented the resultant bad image the repeated rejection of commodities from Nigeria by the EU has caused the country.

In a statement by NAFDAC Resident Media Consultant, Sayo Akintola, which was made available to newsmen on Sunday in Abuja, she noted that the stakeholders meeting was apt considering the volume of food and agricultural commodities from Nigeria that is currently facing challenges at entry points in some countries in Europe and the United States of America where they have been repeatedly rejected and which has become a great issue of concern.

She stated that ; ‘’ NAFDAC has a statutory responsibility to safeguard public health through the execution of its mandate. We are charged with the responsibility to regulate and control the manufacture, importation, exportation, distribution, advertisement, sale and use of food, drugs, cosmetics, medical devices, bottled and packaged water, chemicals generally referred to as NAFDAC regulated products.’’

She said that, NAFDAC is designated as World Trade Organization/Sanitary and Phytosanitary Enquiry Point in Nigeria on Food Safety to facilitate international trade, and respond to enquiries on safety standards, regulations, and guidelines on food trade in Nigeria.

Internationally, she said Nigerias products meant for export market are faced with presence of contaminants such as pesticide residues, notoriously dichlorvos and other impurities, exceeding maximum permitted level and some with inadequate packaging and labeling which had caused a lot of products rejections in the global market.

She noted that the international market is competitive in nature and only welcomes products of high quality with relevant certifications and quality packaging that is environmentally friendly, to trade globally, stressing that the problem of quality, standard, certification, and appropriate packaging for made-in-Nigeria products destined for export has been an issue in the international market and there is need to address the issue of rejections.

The NAFDAC boss disclosed that the Agency has over the years intervened to assist Nigerian exporters to meet with international regulations thereby creating employment and earning foreign exchange for Nigeria.
Through this intervention by NAFDAC, she added that it was agreed that these products be subjected to 100% pre-export testing and issuance of Health Certificate to products with satisfactory limits before European Union further verify at their border control points.

Adeyeye further disclosed that her Agency had analyzed the RASFF alert from the EU and observed that most rejected products by the EU were smuggled out and not certified by NAFDAC nor the Nigeria Agricultural Quarantine Services at the ports, adding that this calls for proper collaboration and synergy amongst all agencies of government to curb the indecent behavior of some exporters and ensure only quality and certified products are exported.

‘’We need to close gaps and work together to prevent regulatory gaps being exploited by the unscrupulous traders and their collaborators. There must be a convergence for all regulatory activities especially at the Ports of Exit as a starting point before we begin cleaning up and capacitating the honest operators and traders within the country’’.

Based on the RASFF alert received from EU, she said NAFDAC had sensitized food processors, handlers and exporters through training programmes, workshops and seminars on current Food Safety Management requirements such as Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP), Good Manufacturing Practises (GMP), Good Hygiene Practices (GHP), Risk Analysis to ensure that products are safe and of good quality, to gain consumers confidence and acceptability in Nigeria and international export markets.

‘’Effective assessments of export products are very key and basic information that may need to be consider in the accompanying shipping documents include Certificate of Radiation, Health certificate, Sanitary and Phytosanitary certificate, Evidence of fumigation of vessels and evidence of risk- based inspection on food Safety, must all be certified by the appropriate and designated competent authorities having current scope-testing accreditation’, she said.

She admonished the participants especially the MDAs, to be awake to their responsibility as the nations gatekeepers by ensuring the availability of quality-assured, safe, wholesome and efficacious products. The technical meeting attracted over sixty participants consisting of Ministries, Departments and Agencies MDAs, Private Sector, Shippers Council, Freight Forwarders and EU Delegation to Nigeria.

She remarked that, ‘’We have a huge collective responsibility: to ensure the availability of quality-assured, safe, wholesome and efficacious products; and NAFDAC as an enquiring point for Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) for food safety, and other Departments and parastatals of FMARD for plants and animal health and safety with Standards Organisation of Nigeria for Technical Barriers in Trade; products and services for export should meet quality certification of the importing countries to avoid or reduce to barest minimum the rejection of made-in Nigeria products in the international market’’, she said.

‘We should talk together, understand one another, agree to work together, and come up with a workplan for whatever we agreed to do together. We must turn a new leaf for the sake of our beloved country!’, she insists.
In order to effectively address the problem faced in the international market, she explained that there is need for 3Cs: Coordination, Cognition, and Collaboration between all Government bodies involved in regulating exportation of semi-processed and processed food.

…Focuses On Lessons From COVID-19 Pandemic, Other Disease Outbreaks

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) is conducting a conference in partnership with partners.

The Nigerian Conference of Applied and Field Epidemiology is in its first year.

(NiCAFE) from July 26th to July 28th, 2021.

‘Building Back Better: COVID-19 and Other Disease Outbreaks’ is the theme of this year’s NiCAFE conference.

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) in collaboration with partners is hosting
the maiden edition of the Nigerian Conference of Applied and Field Epidemiology (NiCAFE) from the 26th – 28th of July 2021.

The theme of this year’s NiCAFE conference is ‘Building back better: COVID-19 and other disease outbreaks.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an influence on countries all around the world in the previous 17 months. In addition to the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been other illness outbreaks in Nigeria, including Lassa fever and cholera.

The NiCAFE conference seeks
to bring together public health professionals, laboratory scientists, field epidemiologists,
researchers, health care professionals and other members of the public to reflect on the
response to these outbreaks, review gaps in epidemic preparedness and response and brainstorm innovative solutions to strengthen health security.

The 2021 NiCAFE conference begins as Nigeria reinvigorates the ongoing COVID-19 response given an increasing number of new cases.

The conference which will be held
virtually, will feature eight keynote/plenary speakers, over 170 oral and poster presentations across various themes. These include governance and leadership, epidemiology, surveillance and transmission dynamics, case management of infectious diseases.

Other conference sub-themes include social sciences and community engagement, the role of agriculture and environment in disease transmission as well as
health system strengthening for future pandemics.

The conference keynote lecture will be given by the Chief Scientist of the World Health
Organization, Dr. Soumya Swaminathan on Day 1, and the Director of the Africa Centers
for Disease Control, Dr. John Nkengasong on Day 2.
Plenary speakers at the conference include Professor Babatunde Salako, Director General
of the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR); Professor Akin Abayomi,
Honourable Commissioner for Health, Lagos State, Nigeria; Dr Akindele Adebiyi, Public
Health Physician and Clinical Epidemiologist; Professor Folasade Ogunsola, Consultant
Clinical Microbiology and Infection Control, and Chair of the Infection Control Africa
Network (ICAN); Dr Richard Hatchett, Chief Executive Officer of Coalition for Epidemic
Preparedness Innovations (CEPI); and Ms. Zouera Youssoufou, Managing Director and
Chief Executive Officer of the Aliko Dangote Foundation.

The NiCAFE conference will be open by the Minister of Health, Dr
Osagie Ehanire and will provide an opportunity for learning, connecting, and collaborating
among public health professionals and enthusiasts in Nigeria. Ahead of the conference,
nine pre-conference workshops focused on skill-building and experience sharing were
organised.

Since 2008, the Federal Ministry of Health through the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control
(NCDC) and the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development have closely worked together to establish and strengthen the Nigeria Field Epidemiology and
Laboratory Training Programme (NFELTP).

The NFELTP which has been supported by the
US Centers for Disease Control (US-CDC), African Field Epidemiology Network (AFENET)
and more recently the World Bank, has significantly contributed to an increased number
of field epidemiologists contributing to national health security.

The NCDC thanked the 2021 NiCAFE supporting partners including WHO, UNICEF, the
World Bank funded Regional Disease Surveillance Systems Enhancement Project, US-CDC,
AFENET, Public Health England, Resolve to Save Lives, Tony Blair Institute and the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation.

The NiCAFE conference is an evolution of the previous NCDC/NFELTP conference. This
year’s conference will focus on how Nigeria can build back better from the COVID-19 response to strengthen the country’s capacity to prevent, detect and respond to disease outbreaks.

…As WHO Encourage Countries To Include Hepatitis B PMTCT In Ante-Natal Care Package

Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa, has suggested that more than 124,000 Africans die each year as a result of undiagnosed and untreated hepatitis.

Hepatitis is a secret pandemic in Africa, according to the WHO, with more than 90 million people living with the disease, accounting for 26% of the global total.

She estimates that 4.5 million African children under the age of five are infected with chronic hepatitis B, accounting for 70% of the global burden in this age group. The global target of less than 1% incidence of hepatitis B in children under 5 years has been reached, but the African Region is lagging behind at 2.5%.

In her message to honor World Hepatitis Day, Moeti hinted at this in order to raise awareness of the disease, which causes inflammation in the liver and can lead to liver cancer and cirrhosis.

However, she pointed out that the majority of these cases might be avoided by preventing illness transfer from mother to child during or shortly after birth, as well as in early childhood.

Vaccination at birth and in early childhood, screening pregnant women, and appropriate treatment are all important measures in the fight against hepatitis B.

According to her; “So, in the WHO African Region, we are urging especially that “mothers can’t wait.”
We are encouraging countries to integrate the Hepatitis B PMTCT in the Ante-Natal Care package together with the HIV and Syphilis PMTCT program.

“This year’s theme is “hepatitis can’t wait” and we call on all countries to rapidly improve access to services to prevent, diagnose and treat hepatitis.

“Yet only 14 countries in the Region are implementing hepatitis B birth-dose vaccine. Among people who are infected, nine out of 10 have never been tested because of limited awareness and access to testing and treatment. Even among countries offering hepatitis B birth-dose vaccine, health systems are facing challenges in ensuring pregnant women and mothers are tested and that those who test positive are treated.

“At the same time, there are many promising developments on hepatitis. With the launch of the first global strategy on hepatitis in 2016, along with increased advocacy in recent years, political will is starting to translate into action. Hepatitis medicines have become much more affordable, with prices as low as US$ 60 per patient for a 12-week treatment.”

Moeti also stated that, “Considering this advantage, African Heads of States have committed to address viral hepatitis as a public health threat in the Cairo Declaration in February 2020. In this line, the Egyptian Initiative planned to provide hepatitis C treatment for 1 million Africans. So far, this initiative has reached more than 50,000 people in South Sudan, Eritrea and Chad.

“A part of them, Rwanda, Uganda and Benin have established free testing and treatment programmes for hepatitis, and 16 other countries are starting pilot projects in this direction.

“To guide action on hepatitis, 28 African countries now have strategic plans in place and at the global level WHO guidelines were launched last year on prevention of mother-to-child transmission of hepatitis B”.

She added that the WHO Regional Office for Africa is developing training materials in order to help countries to implement the five hepatitis core interventions and decentralize the diagnosis and treatment.

Going forward, as WHO we are seeking to integrate hepatitis B interventions into antenatal care services. We also want to strengthen collaboration with key partners, such as the Organization of African First Ladies for Development, which have championed progress towards a HIV-free generation. By expanding programmes to incorporate hepatitis, action can be quickly scaled-up.

So, this World Hepatitis Day, I urge all stakeholders in maternal and child health to consider how hepatitis can be integrated into existing initiatives such as the First Ladies “free to shine” initiative which is working in countries for an AIDS-free generation in Africa.

Health systems also play vital roles in preventing transmission by making sure blood donations are screened and that syringes are only used once and then safely disposed. Finally, I want to encourage individuals to seek testing and treatment for hepatitis and to learn more about this disease, to end the silent epidemic.