Nigeria is 2nd in world maternal mortality 'PATHS

The National Programme Director of the Partnership for the Transforming Health System (PATHS 2), Mike Egboh, has said that Nigeria is the second country in the world, after India, with the highest maternal mortality rate contributes 10 per cent to the world's total maternal death.Speaking at the kick-off of the Emergency Transport Scheme (ETS) for pregnant women in Kaduna State on Monday, Egboh said that statistics had also shown that Nigeria contributed only two per cent to the world population, but had one of the highest child and maternal mortality in the world.Wife of the Kaduna State governor, Mrs Amina Ibrahim Yakowa, said on the occasion that the kick-off of the scheme in the state was an innovative mechanism for reducing maternal death in the state.According to her, the scheme was aimed at improving access of pregnant women to emergency obstetric care in the state, especially in the rural communities where women and children found it difficult to access care due to lack of transportation to various health care centres.The introduction of the scheme, she said, would enable pregnant women in the state to find easy access to health care within and outside their communities, even as the scheme would compliment the efforts of the state government in ensuring that the state achieve the health related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) through the provision of free maternal and child health care.Mrs Yakowa, therefore, appealed to drivers who had been trained to take the scheme very seriously so as to ensure its success, promising to personally drive the project to ensure its success.Egboh explained that PATHS 2, a DFID sponsored programme, was poised to assist in the reduction of maternal mortality in the country and had, therefore, budgeted about 8.5 million pounds (about N2.3 billion) for the reduction of maternal mortality in Kaduna State.
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