By Angela Onwuzoo
A consultant paediatrician with the Eko Hospital, Lagos, Dr Patricia Aligwekwe, says parents should stop sending their babies to crowded daycare centres, warning that they could expose them to the risk of respiratory infections such as pneumonia.
Aligwekwe said overcrowding is a prerequisite for community-acquired pneumonia.
According to her, pneumonia leads to under-five deaths, emphasizing that the incidence is high in Nigeria even when it could be prevented with vaccines.
Johns Hopkins University in February 2020, said two million Nigerian children might die of pneumonia in the next decade.
Pneumonia, according to the World Health Organisation is a form of acute respiratory infection that is most commonly caused by viruses or bacteria. It can cause mild to life-threatening illness in people of all ages, however, it is the single largest infectious cause of death in children worldwide.
The United Nations health agency said pneumonia killed more than 808,000 children under the age of five in 2017, accounting for 15 per cent of all deaths of children under five years.
“People at risk for pneumonia also include adults over the age of 65 and people with preexisting health problems.
“The lungs are made up of small sacs called alveoli, which fill with air when a healthy person breathes. When an individual has pneumonia, the alveoli are filled with pus and fluid, which makes breathing painful and limits oxygen intake. These infections are generally spread by direct contact with infected people”, WHO said.
Speaking in an interview with PUNCH Healthwise, the paediatrician noted that 75 per cent of pneumonia cases among under-five children in the country were community-acquired due to overcrowding.
She explained, “It is acquired by droplet infection; it is acquired from person to person; so you have to stay close to the person for you to contact it.
“So, staying in an overcrowded place is a prerequisite for it to happen.
“Parents should stop sending their kids to overcrowded daycare centres.
“They should avoid taking their children to where they are likely to catch this infection. Parents should find out how healthy the environment is before sending their kids to daycare centres. And also find out how many children are there.
“There is a limit to what a room can contain in terms of having children or adults inside it. If you have a room containing up to 10 children, it is very unhealthy especially if it is in an enclosed environment.”
According to her, overcrowding should be avoided as much as possible while people who are showing signs of infections like sneezing and coughing should be isolated.
The paediatrician further said, “Parents should send their kids to centres where there is no overcrowding and if possible, pay higher for it.
“It is their exclusive responsibility and not that of the government. This is because when your child gets pneumonia, he will abandon schooling and be hospitalized for days. What if the child dies from it? So, prevention is better than cure.”
Aligwekwe urged the government to make sure that the environment is not unnecessarily polluted and also ensure that there is no overcrowding in places of worship and marketplaces.
She also wants the government to make vaccines targeted at pneumonia available at the primary healthcare centres.
According to UNICEF, Nigeria contributes the highest number of global pneumonia child deaths, adding that though pneumonia is a preventable disease, it kills more children globally than any other infection.
“In Nigeria, 19 per cent of child deaths were due to pneumonia in 2018, and it was the biggest killer of children under five in 2017.
“Pneumonia is a deadly disease and takes so many children’s lives – even though this is mostly preventable. And yet, this killer disease has been largely forgotten on the global and national health agendas”, says UNICEF.
