Four thousand and one hundred Nigerian children have lost one or both parents between March 2020 and July 2021 due to COVID-19-associated deaths, World Bank has said.
The bank disclosed this in its latest blog post ‘For every two COVID-19 deaths, one child loses a caregiver. We must do more to address the orphan crisis.’
Nigerian has so far recorded 2,130 fatalities from coronavirus.
The report, which was co-authored by a lead economist at World Bank, Laura Rawlings, and a senior technical advisor, CDC COVID-19 International Task Force, Susan Hillis, also said 4,600 Nigerian children lost one or both parents, death of custodial grandparents, and/or death of other co-residing grandparents.
The report added that the children left behind have been practically invisible.
“By the end of June 2021, because of COVID-19, our estimates show that nearly 2 million children aged under 18 years have lost a mother, father, and/or grandparent caregiver who lived in their household,” the report said.
“The economic, developmental, and psychological impacts on these children will reverberate across generations, a tragic legacy of COVID mortality. The COVID crisis will leave many unwanted legacies.
“The world has been closely tracking the COVID-19 death toll, with official mortality counts now reaching over 4 million people, largely concentrated among adults. The children left behind have been practically invisible.”
The report showed that Nigeria has the highest number of orphaned children in West Africa, while South Africa currently has the highest number in Africa with 101,700 children orphaned within the period.
Others in West Africa with more than 1,000 orphaned children include Mali (1,000), Ghana(1,500), Cameroon (2,600) and Senegal (2,400).
The report added that during the pandemic’s first 14 months, over 1 million children experienced death of primary caregivers, including parents or custodial grandparents.
