Kwara state Primary Healthcare Development Agency has urged nursing mothers to maintain good personal and environmental hygiene to prevent diarrhoea in teething-children under five years of age.
The Executive Secretary of the agency , Dr Nusirat Elelu made the call in Ilorin, while speaking at a stakeholders engagement meeting on introduction of vaccine for rota virus disease in children below five years in the state.
She said that diarrhoea in children growing teeth is a myth and not a normal health condition.
Represented by the Director of Primary Health Care systems, Dr. Michael Oguntoye, the executive secretary said that it is normal for a child to grow teeth, adding that growing teeth among children under five years should not normally be associated with diarrhoea.
She urged stakeholders and parents to present their children under five years of age for rota virus vaccination at health facilities close to them starting from August 27.
Dr Elelu noted that the vaccination exercise should be encouraged among the people as diarrhoea kills children fast, adding that the vaccine is not harmful to children and it is free.
In his remark , a health expert , Dr. Nurudeen Adana, said that rota virus infection, discovered in 1973, causes diarrhoea among under five children, especially, in warm and dry months of the year.
In her address , a consultant paediatrician at the Children Hospital Centre Igboro, Ilorin, Dr. Mosunmola Folorunso, emphasised the importance of physical and environmental hygiene among nursing mothers and children in order to prevent diarrhoea among children.
ALI MUHAMMAD RABIU
