The National Population Commission (NPC) on Thursday said it has commenced a verbal and social autopsy survey across 12 local government areas of Taraba to unmask the courses of death in children between 0 to 5 years.
Alhaji Sanny Sale, the Federal Commissioner of the commission disclosed to journalists at a press briefing in Jalingo.
The commissioner said the objectives of the survey included the provision of up to date information on early childhood mortality rate, estimation of Cultural/behavioral/social and health systems factors of neonatal infant and under five mortality within the 12 local government areas of the state.
Sale said the 2019 edition of the survey was the second in series conducted by the NPC having conducted the first in 2014.
He further stated that NPC in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Health and other key Ministries, Departments, and agencies with support from USAID was conducting the survey to generate data for national planning to assist policy makers with reliable information to plan and formulate policies for the health sector.
“The result of the survey will provide National, Zonal and State level estimate of major courses of under five mortality in Taraba and Nigeria.
“It will also make available patterns of care seeking, social factors and interventions received as related to deaths in children less than five years of age.
“For the ongoing 2019 survey, two sets of interviewing teams are on the field, these are qualitative and quantitative teams, the quantitative team will focus more on responses from care givers in the households while the qualitative teams will focus on group discussions and in depth interviews within the communities”.
Sale named the local government councils being covered by the survey to include Jalingo, Lau, Kalim Lamido, Gasol, Takum, and Wukari, Donga, Gashaka, Sardauna, and Kurmi.
