IMO AUGUST MEETING OUTCOME: NOA INSISTS ON PERSONAL HYGIENE & VACCINATION

More than eight-four thousand women from five hundred and forty communities in Imo State have been sensitized to ways of enhancing child survival and maternal health by the National Orientation Agency (NOA).

The State Director of the Agency, Mr. Vitus Ekeocha, made this known while speaking with journalists on the achievements recorded during the 2019 Women’s August Meeting in Imo State.

He said NOA, with support from UNICEF, took advantage of the women’s gathering in various churches to stress on the need for parents and caregivers to ensure full immunization of children to check vaccine-preventable diseases.

Mr. Ekeocha appealed to pregnant women to always seek antenatal care to reduce maternal mortality and infant morbidity while making exclusive breastfeeding a must to assist in child’s development.

He expressed concern that many children died as a result of carelessness from parents and called on mothers to visit health facilities nearest to them each time their children presented worrisome symptoms of ill health.

Mr. Ekeocha, who described women as change agents and catalysts of development, challenged them to inculcate issues of community and family well being in their meetings.

The Chief Orientation and Mobilization Officer in Mbaitoli Local Government Area of the State, Mrs. Nkechi Ogazi, said many families still lacked toilet facilities while others dug pit latrines too close to their abode.

She expressed regret that the situation had worsened hygiene in many communities, thereby giving rise to infections and communicable diseases.

Mrs. Ogazi advised mothers to avoid indiscriminate fecal disposal and desist from female circumcision to save the life of the girl child.

The Chairman Ikeduru Council of Traditional Rulers, Dr. Marcel Egemonu, lamented lack of resident doctors and nurses in health centres and appealed to the state government to address the issue.

 
CHINAZO ILECHUKWU