The Executive Director, NPHCDA, Dr Faisal Shuaib, on Tuesday in Abuja, during the National flag-off, said that the OptiCCs project seeks to build on three major intervention areas.

The country’s maternal mortality rate remains a public health concern.

According to the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) 2018, 512 women die per 100,000 live births, accounting for 20 per cent of global maternal deaths, the high number of women who die while giving life in the country.

Shuaib said that currently the OptiCCs project is being implemented by the National Emergency Maternal and Child Health Intervention Centre (NEMCHIC) at the NPHCDA.

The NPHCDA boss said that this intervention’s main goal is to optimise ante-natal care uptake by ensuring that every pregnant woman in the country’s Primary Health care facilities receive quality integrated PHC services and care.

He said that the OptiCCs intervention had four objectives as follows;” to increase the number of Antenatal care (ANC) visits following the first ANC visit until delivery, thereby reducing dropout rates.

“To improve the integration of ANC with other PHC services such as HIV testing and counselling, TB, Malaria and COVID, amongst others.

“To improve the provision and experience of quality antenatal care and uptake of PHC services.

“To build the capacity of health care workers on the provision of quality ANC and integrated PHC services,” he outlined.

He said that the pilot phase of the OptiCCS intervention would be in three states – Anambra, Kebbi and Jigawa.

Ms Fatima Zanna, German Development Cooperation/GIZ, Back up Health, Country Team Lead, said that the project was financed by the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), and Co-financed by UK foreign, Commonwealth and Department Office and through GIZ Nigeria.

Zanna said that OptiCCs aims to generate evidence showing improvement in service delivery, service uptake and quality of service using a digital application that would guide healthcare workers in promoting the integration of ANC and other PHCs services.

She said ANC is an important platform to provide HIV, Tuberculosis and Malaria services during pregnancy.

“It serves as a continuum for skilled attendance at birth and healthy behaviours such as breastfeeding and early postnatal care, including immunisation and family planning.

“Unfortunately, in Nigeria, low ANC attendance and high dropout rates have continued to impact negatively on maternal and child health outcomes,” she explained.

She said with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic vaccine, research showed that the more frequent ANC visits a woman had, the better her pregnancy outcome.

The Country Representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Nigeria, Dr Walter Kazadi Molumbo, expressed the hope that if the intervention is deployed, PHCs in the country would experience a decrease in ANC dropout rates.

Molumbo said that there would be an increase in PHC deliveries, improved integration, quality provision of services and also quality data that would inform policymakers’ decisions on ANC optimisation and service integration.

He said that the foundation of any strong health system and for Universal Health Coverage rests on a robust, resilient PHC system.

Speaking at the event, the Emir of Jiwa, Alhaji Idris Musa, said that maternal mortality had been identified as a major global health indicator.

Musa said that poor access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) remained a major challenge, contributing significantly to high levels of diarrhoea-related deaths.

He expressed hope in the project, noting that Maternity care that focused on women’s needs and treat women respectfully was likely to lead to greater satisfaction as well as better and more equitable health outcomes in the country.