By Chioma Obinna
Key health sector stakeholders have called for stronger national ownership and coordination of the Safety and Antimicrobial Resistance of Mass Administration of Azithromycin Among Children, SARMAAN, project as part of efforts to accelerate child survival interventions in Nigeria.
The call was made during a high-level stakeholder roundtable convened following recommendations from the National Child Health Technical Working Group (NCH-TWG) and the Family Health Department of the Federal Ministry of Health.
Participants at the meeting stressed that Nigeria must take full leadership of the project to ensure sustainability and strengthen the country’s strategy to reduce preventable child deaths.
Chair of the SARMAAN II Steering Committee and Director/Head of the Family Health Department at the Federal Ministry of Health, Dr. John Ovuoraye, said protecting the lives of Nigerian children must remain a national priority.
“Survival is the most fundamental right of Nigerian children. For the progressive inclusion of SARMAAN II into Nigeria’s Child Survival Action Plan, we must co-create and implement solutions together,” Ovuoraye said.
He stressed that discussions around the project must focus on practical outcomes and align with existing government coordination structures.
“Research alone cannot translate into policy. All partners and technical teams must work together, and everyone in this room must ensure we succeed as a country,” he added.
Stakeholders at the meeting agreed that Nigeria must increasingly lead the narrative and drive informed government decision-making on child survival interventions.
The SARMAAN II project, Nigeria’s contribution to the regional Resiliency through Azithromycin for Children (REACH) Network, aims to generate strong national evidence on the effectiveness of Azithromycin Mass Drug Administration (MDA) in reducing deaths among children aged one to 59 months.
Principal Investigator of the project and Director-General of the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research, Prof. Babatunde Salako, said the initiative is part of a wider African effort to combat high child mortality through evidence-based interventions.
He explained that the programme builds on successful trials in Niger, Tanzania, and Malawi, where similar azithromycin interventions recorded up to a 13.5 percent reduction in child mortality.
Providing an overview of the project’s implementation progress, Senior Project Manager Solina Ijeoma Mmirikwe disclosed that the intervention has already reached millions of Nigerian children.
According to her, more than 13 million unique children have been reached between 2022 and 2024, with 19 rounds of Mass Drug Administration successfully implemented across 10 states.
The states include Adamawa, Gombe, Yobe, Bauchi, Kaduna, Kano, Jigawa, Katsina, Kebbi, and Sokoto.
She added that over 1.5 million bottles of azithromycin have been distributed across the participating states, with no serious adverse events recorded so far during implementation.
Also speaking, Project Lead of the SARMAAN Advocacy Project, Ikechukwu Ofuani, said the advocacy initiative is focused on ensuring government ownership of the intervention and integrating the programme into Nigeria’s Child Survival Action Plan.
According to him, the advocacy strategy also aims to secure sustainable domestic financing, strengthen policy engagement, and improve public awareness around child survival interventions.
The advocacy consortium supporting the initiative is led by Policy Vault Africa, with communications support from Saldrey Communications Limited and Big Cabal Media.
Health experts at the meeting emphasized that strengthening coordination, policy integration, and stakeholder collaboration will be crucial for scaling up interventions capable of significantly reducing preventable child deaths in Nigeria.
They noted that collective ownership of the SARMAAN project will help ensure that the programme not only generates scientific evidence but also translates into long-term national policy and sustainable child survival strategies.
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