The United Nations Children’s Fund has called on the Nigerian Government to rise to the challenge of protecting children, warning that 950 children under the age of five may die daily as Coronavirus ravages the world.
The United Nations humanitarian organisation added that globally countries may lose 6,000 children daily.
According to a statement by Geoffrey Njoku, UNICEF’s Nigeria Communication Specialist, 10 countries that are most likely to witness the highest child mortality rates include Djibouti, Eswatini, Lesotho, Liberia, Mali, Malawi, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sierra Leone and Somalia. 
UNICEF added that deaths would be from preventable causes over the next six months as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupts routine services and threatens to weaken the health system.
The estimate, UNICEF said, is based on an analysis by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, newly published in The Lancet Global Health journal.
In a commentary to the Lancet report, UNICEF warns these disruptions could result in potentially devastating increases in maternal and child deaths.
The analysis offers three scenarios of the potential impact of COVID-19 in 118 low and middle-income countries, including Nigeria.
