Solina Health Limited, a health-focused not-for-profit organisation has partnered Oyo State Government, World Bank and Accelerating Nutrition Results in Nigeria (ANRiN) to provide healthcare for over 4.2 million women and children across 16 local councils in the state from June 2021 till date.
The initiative, which is a three-year scheme, was designed to fight malnutrition in children and fortify pregnant women and nursing mothers against illnesses and diseases.
The Oyo State Commissioner for Health, Dr Oluwaserimi Ajetunmobi, in her address, at the weekend, expressed joy over the success of the programme.
Adefunmbi said: “When you talk of acute malnutrition in the state, we can see that this project has really made an impact. I had been to the field, I had seen some children being fed with micronutrient supplements and I can say that they are doing well. I have seen other children that are not well fed at least in comparison, I can say they are not really thriving well. We had to link them up to hospitals for them to have proper care.
“We need to set realistic targets as well. Above all, we need to take ownership locally.”
The Project Manager for ANRiN and Principal, Solina Centre for International Development and Research (SCIDaR), Demilade Osoteku, expressed satisfaction on the support by the state government and other stakeholders towards the success of the project.
Deputy Project Director, Solina Health Limited, Dr Omowumi Okedare, said a lot was achieved in the last three years in the fight against malnutrition.
“We have been able to achieve a lot through our LGA stakeholders – the Nutrition Focal Persons, Health Educators, and MoH/PHC Coordinators and nutrition focal persons, the health educators, the state and more importantly, the project coordinating unit of ANRiN.
“At Solina Health, we provided pregnant women with Multiple Micronutrient Supplement (MMS) instead of the usual iron folic acid. For children, we provided four commodities – the Micronutrient Powder, Zinc ORS, Vitamin A supplementation and Albendazole tablets for deworming.”
Oyo State Project Coordinator for ANRiN, Dr Khadijat Alarape, explained that the state was selected for the project due to malnutrition prevalence in the state evidence in stunting.
Alarape stated, “The evidence was high in Oyo State for children under age 5. Globally, the criteria for stunting is put at 24 percent, meaning that when you have 100 children, about 23 of them are stunted. That was the baseline used for the selection. And by global standard for stunting, it should be less than 20per cent.”