Nkhata Bay to register 13 635 babies

Nkhata Bay District Health Office (DHO) says it expects to register 13 635 live births by the end of this year in the national birth registration exercise rolled out last year.

Speaking yesterday at a review meeting of the exercise, district health officer Albert Mkandawire said his office has already registered 4 301 babies in its various health facilities.

However, the district is yet to start issuing birth certificates which are expected to be ready by November this year.

Said Mkandawire: “Two months after the first training in May, we ran out of birth registration copies, but that has been ironed out. Now we have a good supply chain for birth reports that our midwives fill soon after the delivery of a baby within our facilities.”

The exercise in Nkhata Bay, which is under the National Registration Bureau, is being supported by World Vision Malawi (WVM).

WVM Sanga programmes manager Prince Nkhata said the exercise will help them address defilement cases where they fail to prove the age of victims.

“As a child-centred organisation, our major concern is children. We need to protect children from abuse. The birth certificates will help various stakeholders in proving the age of the abused children in defilement cases,” he said.

The organisation has trained over 181 individuals and committees in the exercise.