By Chinwe Imo-Eze Onwosi
The National Population Commission (NPC) says
it has commenced the 2023/24 Nigeria demographic and health survey (NDHS) in Ebonyi State.
The commission appealed to local government councils, traditional institutions and communities in the state to support the commission in carrying out the survey by allowing the field workers access to the selected clusters.
Juliana Manyike, state director of the commission, stated this during a press briefing on Thursday, in Abakaliki, the Ebonyi state capital.
Manyike said the data of the survey would be collected across 13 clusters in 12 out of the 13. Local government areas of the state.
She said the survey would be useful in providing invaluable insights that will inform evidence-based policies that’ll contribute to enhancing public health intervention and broader development agenda of the country.
The state director noted that NPC has spearheaded the implementation of the NDHS in close collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Health and key partners.
The Director listed the objectives of NDHS to include: collection of hight data for policy formulation, Programme planning, monitoring and evaluation.
“Foster and reinforce country ownership of data collection, analysis, presentation and use; increase the capacity of the country to collect and use data for policy and purposes.
“NDHS is a National survey conduced every five years with the last exercise done in 2018.
“A total of 34 clusters will be visited in 12 out of 13 local government areas of Ebonyi with the exception of Afikpo south.
“Each selected households within a cluster will be visited and information obtained using the household questionnaire from women, aged 15 to 49 years and men, aged 15 to 59 respectively.
“Ebonyi state team has completed two local government areas, Ezza North and Ezza South and currently in Ikwo council,’ she added
Dr Jeremiah Nwankwagu, NPC’s Commissioner Nominee for Ebonyi Commission commended the team and urged the to keep the flag flying.
“We are happy the programme has been going on smoothly and people are responding without any hitch,” Nwankwagu added.
Dr Moses Ekuma, Commissioner for Health in Ebonyi, represented by Dr Hyacinth Ebenyi, Director of Public Health in the state, said the survey was a welcome development.
Ekuma pledged the state government support the programme at successful data collection across the local government areas in the state.
He noted that without survey health activities would be wasted
