Maternal deaths drop 60% in FG intervention areas — Minister

FILE: The Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Muhammad Ali Pate.

The Federal Government said it has reported a 60 per cent reduction in maternal deaths in communities covered by its Maternal and Newborn Mortality Reduction Innovation Initiative, known as MAMII, between 2024 and 2026.

The Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Muhammad Pate, disclosed this on Tuesday in Abuja at the third Nigeria Health Sector Joint Annual Review.

Pate attributed the reported reduction to improved access to skilled birth attendants, emergency referral services and maternal healthcare facilities under the initiative.

He said the government had recruited “19,758 skilled birth attendants across 22 states and trained 78,054 frontline health workers to strengthen service delivery.”

According to him, 91 per cent of Basic Health Care Provision Fund-supported facilities in MAMII areas now have at least two midwives or community health extension workers, compared with 12 per cent at the beginning of the intervention.

He added that “99 per cent of the facilities were connected to emergency referral systems, while 750,000 pregnant women had been mapped and linked to functional health facilities. “

“Within MAMII areas, BHCPF facilities have also recorded a reduction of approximately 60 per cent in maternal case fatality between 2024 and 2026,” the minister said.

Pate disclosed that emergency transport services were operating in 171 of the initiative’s 172 local government areas, transporting 104,566 women and newborns.

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He said the government had also re-equipped more than 300 secondary healthcare facilities for comprehensive emergency obstetric and newborn care, alongside over 500 primary healthcare centres for basic emergency obstetric and newborn care.

On the free emergency obstetric care programme, the minister said, “Nearly 100,000 services had been delivered in two years, including 80,906 caesarean sections, approximately 9,100 newborn services and 6,059 vesicovaginal fistula repairs.”

He added that deaths from obstetric emergencies had declined by 22 per cent in participating facilities.

The minister said skilled deliveries recorded at BHCPF-supported facilities increased from 4.8 million in 2023 to 7.9 million by the end of the second quarter of 2026, while fourth antenatal care visits rose from six million to 8.7 million.

However, he acknowledged that Nigeria still faced significant maternal and newborn health challenges, stressing the need to sustain investments in healthcare workers, emergency referrals and functional health facilities.

The Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Iziaq Salako, said the government had improved more than 3,000 primary healthcare centres to Level Two readiness and expanded health insurance coverage by almost eight million additional Nigerians.

Earlier, the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Daju Kachollom, identified persistent health workforce shortages and poor maternal and child health indicators among the challenges requiring urgent attention.

The three-day review, themed ‘Together to Higher Grounds,’ brings together federal and state health officials, development partners and other stakeholders to assess the implementation of Nigeria’s Health Sector Renewal Investment Initiative and identify priorities for improving healthcare delivery.