THE National Population Commission (NPopC) says it will conduct the National Demography and Health Survey (NDHS) in 18 of the 21 local government areas in Anambra.
Mr Joachim Ulasi, Director of NPoPC in Anambra, made the disclosure at a news conference on Tuesday in Awaka.
He said the local governments are Awka North, Awka South, Anaocha, Idemili North, Idemili South, Njikoka, Ekwusigo, and Aguata.
The others are Orumba North, Nnewi North, Nnewi South, Ihiala, Anyamelum, Ogbaru, Onitsha South, Orumba North, Anambra East and Anambra West.
Ulasi said 30 households would be interviewed by a team of 11 officials in 39 clusters earmarked for the exercise with the Ministry of Health as partners.
He said that women between ages 15 and 49, men between 15 and 59 and children 0-59 months would be interviewed on many areas, including malaria and genotype.
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He said that the survey was the sixth in Nigeria with the last conducted in 2013, adding that it would help to create quality data on population, health and nutrition for national planning.
“The specific objectives of this NDHS are to collect high-quality data for policy formulation, programme planning, monitoring and evaluation,” he said.
Ulasi called on the Anambra Government, communities and traditional leaders to work with the officials and get the cooperation of the people for unhindered access to respondents.
He said that he had reached out to security agencies in the state to ensure the safety of field workers.
Also, Dr Chukwuma Ejike, the supervisor of the exercise in the state, said the team was adequately trained.
Ejike said that they would apply Computer Assisted Survey against the Paper Assisted method, adding that the time to spend on an interviewee had been greatly reduced.
“We started on Aug. 26 with Ihiala Local Government and there are no issues and we hope there will not be any, and by the time we come to the hard-to-reach areas, we will adjust accordingly to ensure every cluster is covered,” he said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the exercise which started on Aug. 26 will end on Dec. 15.
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