Life expectancy in Nigeria is now 47 years, making it the lowest among West African countries, the Project Director, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, Prof. Abdulsalam Nasidi, has said.
He said this in Gusau on Thursday at the commencement of the second Annual General Meeting and Scientific Conference of the state’s chapter of the Nigeria Medical Association.
Nasidi, who presented a paper titled: “Lead Poisoning- Zamfara Experience” said this position was 30 per cent below the world’s average life expectancy.
He said it was a situation that was attributable to some health factors, including child and maternal mortality, spread of polio virus and other epidemics.
``One out of every five children die before the age of five years due to polio and other infections.
“Nigeria is one of four countries where polio is still an on-going epidemic,” the News Agency of Nigeria quoted the Project Director as saying at the forum.

Nasidi said in Zamfara alone, acute lead poisoning had killed more than 400 children and caused brain damage in several others in Anka and Bukkuyum Local Government Areas.
He described lead poisoning in the area as the “worst-ever recorded outbreak of its kind in modern times.’’
The Project Director said mass lead poisoning and massive cholera epidemics were tragedies of the 19th century.

``This outbreak and our inability to interrupt polio virus transmission are serious indicators of the state of public health service in Nigeria,” he said.
Nasidi said a survey carried out in the affected areas of Zamfara in November 2010 had revealed that more than 85 per cent of the soil had lead contamination.

He noted that its spread was aggravated through heavy rainfalls.
According to him, blood samples of infected persons exceeded the United States Environmental Protection Agency rate by three folds while some blood samples were as high as 100,000 parts per million.

http://www.thenationonlineng.net/2011/index.php/news-update/52122-%E2%80%98nigeria%26%23039%3Bs-life-expectancy-lowest-in-west-africa%E2%80%99.html

the Prof said it

how are the Captain Naija's of Nairaland gonna defend this 1, corruption to the nonsense point is very deadly indeed and even worse, when the people can't hold their leaders responsible but rather defend them , the Prof said it all........very painful to see such a potential country go down the drain

See Bullshit! When our representatives won't stop supplying wrong info to UN just to make money thru aids. I tire oooO!

Am in support with d presenter speech. D average death range is b/w 30yrs to 47yrs nowadays. Thou it can be increased based on individual lifestyle

Lead poisoning in Northern soil, boko haram on the soil, sunny heat from the sky - the North may be extinct soon. We need to address these issues please.

if your child is used to chewing pencil, be careful cos pencil contains lead also some chinese toys.

Every dog and goat is now predicting doomsday for Nigeria. Cant someone predict that am gonna be the richest man alive after buying 14 Oil Blocs ?

This is really bad.

But -I think that life expectancy is largely based on infant mortality rates. Nigeria has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world hence the low life expectancy.

Now how likely is it for a fully grown person to live longer than 47 in Nigeria versus another west African country? Probably bad, but not as horrible as you might think from the statistics.

Yes I am playing the devil's advocate.

No matter how bad the news is...some naija people are never bothered at all, hmmm!

anyways, i know about the above claim for many years now...

i saw people packed in Family cars and coming home from churches on sundays in nigerian and they drive with absolute no regard for the lives of fellow nigerians using the roads!! i was shocked at the recklessness of sunday christians not yielding an inch for other fellow naija people to pass!

so, why is anyone surprised at the stat? oh, i forgot...the western world made it up

dabigwalls: Lead poisoning in Northern soil, boko haram on the soil, sunny heat from the sky - the North may be extinct soon. We need to address these issues please.

LOL

Of course, with BH, floods, millitants, kidnapping, robbery, etc

sizzlers: if your child is used to chewing pencil, be careful cos pencil contains lead also some chinese toys.

pencil lead is made from graphite.

our sinful nature has brought ds shame to us

That is not true-Life expectancy in Nigeria is low but she is not the lowest in west africa. Sierra leone, The Gambia, liberia, Guinea..Infact i can tell u Nigeria is abt the highest. I work with WHO in sierra leone and i can tell sierra leone is about 32. And other countries have close indicators. So i dont know where this man got his own figures.

Don't forget number and fatality of road accidents and poor/ inadequate health care (type and availabiltiy of service, procedures and relevant drugs). I'd rather the government sorts out these problems before building new mega cities and planting trees! Don't get me wrong, these are nice things, but not more important than proper health service and safe roads- these are real problems that should be addressed cos they affect most, if not all, of the population.... Don't forget malaria and HIV and the ignorance/brainwashing which makes certain 'tribes' reject vaccinations because its ''western'' (just stating a fact and not attacking any ethnicity/ religion).

i reject this, me wey be say na that time i go just clock 1. well sha, may be for them.... after they don steal all the money...

$tunna:
No matter how bad the news is...some naija people are never bothered at all, hmmm!

anyways, i know about the above claim for many years now...

i saw people packed in Family cars and coming home from churches on sundays in nigerian and they drive with absolute no regard for the lives of fellow nigerians using the roads!! i was shocked at the recklessness of sunday christians not yielding an inch for other fellow naija people to pass!

so, why is anyone surprised at the stat? oh, i forgot...the western world made it up

Nigeria is already boiling with religious crisis, reason why we have to watch our statements.
Is it only "sunday christian" that is guilty?
What about other days of the week, who is responsible?

Dr Raymond: That is not true-Life expectancy in Nigeria is low but she is not the lowest in west africa. Sierra leone, The Gambia, liberia, Guinea..Infact i can tell u Nigeria is abt the highest. I work with WHO in sierra leone and i can tell sierra leone is about 32. And other countries have close indicators. So i dont know where this man got his own figures.

life epectancy in sierra leone is 44,nigeria is 46,somalia is 47,ghana is 60,senegal is 64,north korea is 67.so are we supposed to celebrate because we are higher that just 12 countries in the world out of a list 194 countries

story

my grandfather died at the age of of 125, and his wife (my grand mother) is still alive and she is 116 now

forget statistics abi na life expectancy una dey call am, oyinbo go just de one place de write number up and down, many nairaland sef na old men, seun for example

Creating health awareness in those areas can help curb the menance but i think their standard of living should also be looked into

Illiterate, worthless FAKE ''Prof'' Abdulsalam Nasidi propounding outdated, misleading statistics in order to extort money.

Nigeria's Life Expectancy WAS 47 years about 6 or 7 years ago, but has now increased to just over 52 years, showing incremental progress.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13949547

That should give ''Professor'' Dunce something to think about.

No surprise