Nigeria has a high burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases (NCDs), with the latter
making up 27 per cent of deaths in 2019, according to the Country Disease Outlook (Nigeria, 2023).
NCDs are a significant health problem in Nigeria. The age-standardised mortality rate across four major
NCDs (cardiovascular disease, chronic respiratory disease, cancer and diabetes) were 565 per 100,000
in males and 546 in females in 2021, according to the outlook. It added that Nigeria had implemented efforts on the NCD progress indicators in areas including the NCD policy and plan, tobacco taxes, tobacco advertising bans, tobacco health warnings, and alcohol taxes.
However, there is limited progress against a subset of the indicators. These include tobacco smoke-free/pollution, tobacco media campaigns, salt policies, trans fats policies, marketing to children and physical activity awareness.
Key points of the report revealed that Nigeria improved its child survival rates between 2015 and 2021. However, it is not yet meeting the SDG targets for neonatal or under-five mortality rates. It also noted that Nigeria “is endemic for four of the five NTDs amenable to preventive chemotherapy through mass drug administration (MDA). In 2020, 84 per cent of the 31.7 million people targeted were treated with MDA.”
According to the report, Nigeria’s coverage rates of vaccination in children have historically been suboptimal and well below the 90 per cent target rate. In 2021, the third dose of DTP-containing vaccine reached just 56 per cent, while the coverage rate for the first dose of the measles vaccine was 59 per cent. The low coverage rates, in combination with the large population, resulted in 3.3 million under-immunised children and 2.3 million zero-dose children.
“It is important for Nigeria to continue to strengthen its routine immunisation system while also implementing catch-up vaccination strategies in the country to ensure that no children are left unprotected from vaccine-preventable diseases in the future,” stated the report.
