The Nigerian government has launched the 2019 Verbal and Social Autopsy study VASA aimed at improving the nation’s healthcare delivery. The VASA study was executed by the National Population Commission in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Health, and development partners, led by the United States Agency for International Development, USAID. The government explained that the development was to improve infant, children and maternal health through accurate, credible, verifiable and acceptable demographic and health data. Speaking at the official lunch and national dissemination of the report in Abuja, Health Minister, Osagie Ehinare said it would assist national planning by providing up-to-date health and social indicators on under-five deaths in Nigeria, and the distribution along geopolitical zones and individual states. Other dignitaries and members of the federal executive council in their remarks commended the initiative saying it improve infant, children and maternal health through accurate, credible, verifiable and acceptable demographic and health data.
Earlier, the Chairman of the National Population Commission,Alhaji Nasir Kwarra said the newly launched report is a follow up to the 2018 NDHS from which one randomly selected deaths from a household with an under-5 death from 2013-2018 were sampled.
It is expected that the data generated in the report would be used by policy makers and all stakeholders to design programmes of better health care delivery in the country.
