By Asma”u Ahmad
The National Population Commission (NPopC) says it will collaborate with Federal Ministry of Health to implement the 2019 Verbal and Social Autopsy Survey (VASA) for up-to-date information on causes of under five deaths.
Ms Amaka Ezenwa, the Project Director, Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS), told the News Agency of Nigeria on Tuesday in Abuja that VASA is a follow up to the 2018 NDHS, and expected to commence data collection as soon as possible.
Ezenwa, who is also the Deputy Director, Research and Planning at the NPopC, said that VASA was to help in getting the accurate preventive, cultural, behavioural, social and health system to determine neonatal and post neonatal mortality.
The project director added that the outcome of the survey would assist policy makers in designing and monitoring child health programmes and strategies.
She explained that the 2019 VASA was facilitated by Social Solution International Inc. through the USAID funded coordinating implementation research to communicate learning and evidence projects.
She further said that strategies put in place for VASA was that the team would revisit the NDHS households where deaths of children from 0-5 years occurred since 2013 is identified.
According to her, the team will only visit the households that consented for the revisit in order to collect information to ascertain the cause of deaths among the under five children.
The project director noted that the National Health Research Ethics Committee (NHREC) had approved the VASA survey, saying that tentative approval from the United Nations is being awaited.
She assured that as soon as the subcontract agreement is endorsed, approval plans for training would commence.
