Diarrhea in NIGERIA (Child Mortality). Health, Medicine Research Paper

Policy Brief
Cases of Child Mortality; Diarrhea in Nigeria
From: Prof. Isaac Folorunso Adewole; Minister of Health, Nigeria
To: António Guterres; Head of United Nations – Water
Introduction:
Every year, hundreds of thousands of children around the world die due to diarrhea. While this problem might seem trivial for developed countries, with citizens that have regular access to health care, certain segments of the world’s population have always suffered due to lack of sufficient healthcare. In fact, recent estimates state that about 42% of the overall child mortality rate in the world was due to simple diseases like diarrhea in Third-world countries (and populations) such as India and Nigeria (The Economic Times, 2017). In line with this, it could be seen that one of the best approaches against this is prevention rather than cure.
Nature and Magnitude of the Problem:
Current estimates from the United Nations show that in Nigeria, Diarrhea has been the second leading cause of death among children (Dairo, Ibrahim, & Salawu, 2017). In the country, one of the leading causes of diarrhea is bacteria (i.e., e Coli, Salmonella, Shigella, etc.) and parasites (i.e., Giardia lamblia and cryptosporidium), that thrives in human waste and excrements of other organisms that mix with the water supply (MayoClinic.org, 2016). In light of this, the government has utilized a mixture of social and technical interventions, including policies on waste disposal, educational programs, and temporary sanitation facilities in order to reduce the problem on waste disposal, water contamination, and consequently, diarrhea amongst children. However, there are still plenty to be done in order to reduce the cases of child morbidity and mortality caused by diarrhea throughout the whole country.
Affected Population:
While sanitation has consistently improved over the years in several parts of the country, a significant portion of the improvements is in urban areas. Subsequently, a negative correlation between cases of child mortality caused by diarrhea and the socio-economic condition (i.e., no. of treatment facilities) of different areas. Nonetheless, the n...