Mr Erhunwmunse Aideyan, Executive Director, Electronic Health Initiative, has called on all tiers of government in to invest in mobile health technology, to enhance immunization and reduce preventable deaths.
Aideyan made the call at a forum to commemorate this year’s World Immunization Week on Sunday in Lagos.
According to him, simple text messages or alerts to mothers can be sent as reminders for childhood immunization.
Lucy reports that the theme of the commemoration, which started on April 20, is: ”Protect your world, get vaccinated”.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), immunization averts about three million deaths annually.
Aideyan said that mHealth (Mobile Health technology) could curtail maternal and neonatal mortality rates in the country.
According to him, vaccine preventable diseases are the major causes of childhood mortality in Nigeria, due to low vaccination uptake and inadequate healthcare system.
“Nigeria has made some major strides, including reductions in child and maternal mortality, major investments in vaccines and immunization programmes, but we still record high death rates.
“We still need to do more as our indicators generally show we are behind in the use of immunization in protecting our population,” he said.
Aideyan added that there was the need to examine trends in infant and child mortality to achieve the 2015 MDGs target.
He said there were over 138 million connected mobile phones in Nigeria, which indicated that nearly all mothers own a mobile phone or could be reached by proxy.
“mHealth can also help collect health data for analysis and planning, increase health awareness and educa
Author: LUCY CHIMA OSUIZIGBO
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