Mr. Femi Ajala is an industrial chemist and Product Manager, Over-The-Counter drugs (OTC) at Fidson Healthcare Plc. Ajala in this interview with journalists ahead of Children’s Day unveiled what the company is doing to improve the health of the Nigerian child and reduce mortality among other issues. CHUKWUMA MUANYA was there. Excerpts:
What is your advice to Nigerian parents on how to ensure that their children grow up healthy and strong?
Parents should simply ensure they pay proper attention to the health of their children. There are some major factors that are necessary for child health; one of them is nutrition. Ensuring that the kids are fed with nutritious foods that contain all the essential nutrients required by the body to stay healthy and function optimally is very important. Parents must ensure they make healthy food choices for their children in order to help them stay healthy, fight sicknesses and infections and also stay mentally and physically alert.
Unfortunately, these days, especially for those living in the cities, getting foods that are well packed with all the essential nutrients is quite difficult, due to more exposure to processed foods. However, it becomes imperative to help the child achieve this nutritional balance with the regular use of a very good nutritional and mineral supplement like Astymin. Astymin offers a balanced blend of essential amino acids that ensures optimal utilization. Amino acids in Astymin are readily absorbed without the need for digestion, as they are supplied in the free form.
Another major factor that determines a child’s health is physical activities. Parents can encourage their children to be more physically active by participating in some sporting or recreational activities. This will help them to build stamina, keep fit, prevent obesity and boosts their mental alertness. It also helps boost their self-esteem, thereby preventing emotional ill health like depression.
Children sometimes may not be very expressive in explaining certain irregularities in their body. Parents should, therefore, be more attentive and also monitor their children’s health closely for any irregularity and take the child to a qualified medical doctor or paediatrician for consultation. It is also important for parents to desist from self-medication, assumptions and the use of medications without proper advice, consultation or prescription from the doctor.
More so maintaining a clean and hygienic environment is very important to children’s health. A clean environment reduces the risk of certain infections that may affect the health of the child. In addition to this, parents are also advised to teach their children some basic health tips like the regular washing of hands, covering their mouth when sneezing or coughing.
Child health, especially with respect to reducing mortality and morbidity, is critical. What in your view are the major challenges to healthy living amongst Children?
Child health is a very critical aspect of general public health concerns. Reports from the United Nation Children Fund (UNICEF) reveal that in Nigeria alone, 2,300 children under five years old die every day, making the country one of the largest contributors to under-five mortality in the world. This is not a pleasant statistics and it is a matter of serious concern to every health stakeholder in the country. One cannot imagine the devastating impact of the loss of a child on any family.
The Nigerian government under the aegis of the Federal Ministry of Health, the Integrated Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (IMNCH), is making frantic efforts at addressing this concern. The government has put together a programme that is designed to revive primary health care in every local government. This programme covers broadly some significant maternal and child health interventions, which are meant to drastically reduce maternal, newborn and under-five mortality in line with the 4th and 5th Millennium Development Goals targets. But this is not a challenge for the Nigerian government alone. All stakeholders must be involved in playing a role aimed at supporting the efforts of government.
Some of the problems being faced in achieving these goals, especially in relation to Child’s health and mortality are enormous.
The importance of healthy nutrition and immune support in reducing mortality and morbidity has been well established. Poor nutrition causes 300,000 to 360,000 deaths per year and is major contributors to child mortality and morbidity. A reduction in neonatal mortality and morbidity is possible if there is an improvement in birth weights through better nutritional care of the adolescents and women of childbearing age before pregnancy and the lactating mother providing a good complementary feeding with continued breastfeeding.
Proper infant nutrition, monitoring, counseling on feeding practices during health and sickness; therapeutic feeding interventions when necessary, prevention and treatment of diarrhoeal disease, including oral rehydration and immunization will reduce infant mortality and morbidity. There will be a reduction in the prevalence of three specific deficiency diseases namely anaemia due to iron deficiency, vitamin A deficiency which causes blindness and reduced immune function through education and distribution of medicinal iron and periodic administration of appreciable doses of vitamin A.
A good immune support will certainly address the challenge posed by common diseases such as malaria, pneumonia and diarrhoea. Some of these diseases affect some vulnerable children in the society especially those who reside in rural communities where proper medical care is still a challenge mostly due to the lack of proximity to public health care facility. Immune support is the next line of protection that adds to the benefits of daily activity. Protein calorie malnutrition impairs host immunity with particularly detrimental effects on the T-cell system, resulting in increased opportunistic infections and increased morbidity and mortality in hospitalized patients. In a series of experiments in normal animals, amino acids were demonstrated to enhance cellular immune mechanisms, in particular, T-cell function. They also had a marked immune- preserving effect in the face of immunosuppression induced by protein malnutrition and increases in tumour burden. Amino acids like Glycine, Arginine, Methionine, play a role in the enhancement of immune function, and also beneficial in the prevention of infectious morbidity and mortality in seriously ill patients. It has also been suggested that amino acids influence the growth of immune cells, T helper function and responsiveness, and synthesis of immunoglobulin A (IgA).
There is also the problem of health education of parents and children, particularly those rural communities. Despite the presence of public health institutions in some of these areas, parents still do not appreciate the importance of accessing proper medical care, but would rather resort to self-medication or alternative self-help treatments. The challenge of accessibility or availability of treatments for some of these common diseases like malaria is also a cause for concern, though there are several efforts to address this challenge, part of which is the World Health Organisation (WHO’s) directive that anti-malarial should be made available and accessible to everyone in Third World countries like Nigeria, where these diseases are prevalent.
