The Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Muhammad Pate, revealed that an estimated 850,000 Nigerian children under the age of five die every year from preventable causes such as premature birth complications and pneumonia.
Speaking in Abuja at the joint national commemoration of the ‘2025 World Pneumonia Day’ and ‘World Prematurity Day’ on Wednesday, Pate, represented by the Director of Health Promotion, John Urakpa, said the grim figures underscore Nigeria’s struggle to meet global child survival targets despite some progress in recent years.
Pate acknowledged that Nigeria had made measurable strides in reducing under-five deaths, but warned that the nation remains far from achieving the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target of reducing under-five mortality to below 25 deaths per 1,000 live births by 2030.
According to Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS), the under-five mortality rate declined from 201 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2000 to 110 deaths per 1,000 in 2023, a 45% reduction over two decades. “Despite this modest progress, approximately 850,000 preventable newborn and under-five deaths are predicted to occur annually,” Pate stated.
He broke down the data further: around 280,000 newborns die within the first 28 days of life, mostly due to premature birth complications, while 162,000 deaths are linked to childhood pneumonia each year.
Also speaking at the event, Martin Dohlsten, UNICEF Nigeria’s Health Manager for Maternal, Newborn, Child, Adolescent Health and HIV, said pneumonia and prematurity remain leading causes of child deaths both globally and in Nigeria.
The event also featured the launch of two key policy frameworks: the Nigerian Child Survival Action Plan (NCSAP) and the National Birth Defect Surveillance Guideline (NBDSG), both designed to fast-track efforts toward ending preventable child deaths.
