By Hassan Zaggi
Last week Thursday, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) raised the concern that 2.2 million children have never received even a single dose of immunization in Nigeria.
It made the disclosure while unveiling the State of the World’s Children Report 2023,” in Abuja.
The reason behind this huge figure, UNICEF said, is due to the weak healthcare systems and lack of access to Primary Healthcare facilities as a result of insecurity and violent conflict in the northeast of the Northwest.
The report described Nigeria as a home for the second largest number of zero-dose children in the world.
This, indeed, is worrisome, hence, there is the need for urgent action and visible efforts by the government and all stakeholders in the country’s health sector to improve our immunization status. .
However, as a way of finding a remedy, UNICEF revealed that, working with Federal Ministry of Health, National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), World Health Organisation (WHO), GAVI, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, it has put machinery in place to ensure, at least, one million children are immunized in the next 700 days.
The targeted areas, UNICEF said, include 100 most deprived local government areas in 18 states of the country.
This is even as over 600,000 children are yet to be immunised against childhood killer diseases in Kano, Katsina and Jigawa states
Addressing the media in Abuja, the UNICEF Nigeria’s Chief of Health, Dr. Eduardo Celades, said: “We are going to local governments and wards to find the ‘zero dose’ children.
“We have identified 100 most deprived councils in 18 states that are priority. Some of the states are Bauchi, Katsina, Jigawa, Kano, Lagos, Plateau, and others.
“COVID-19 slowed down progress made in vaccination; our priority is to catch up and recover. We have immunity gap to fill. 57 per cent of children received Penta-3 vaccination in their first year, protecting them from five life-threatening diseases.
https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-5089981496810613&output=html&h=131&slotname=5765193927&adk=2836232739&adf=3386514395&pi=t.ma~as.5765193927&w=580&lmt=1682265909&rafmt=11&format=580×131&url=https%3A%2F%2Fthenationonlineng.net%2Funicef-2-2m-nigerian-children-not-vaccinated%2F&host=ca-host-pub-2644536267352236&wgl=1&adsid=ChAI8K6TogYQ9L2SjKP7m8ggEj0A-NkYEga_QlUVE3-wgP77zamOvT-iYXHd1rOJ6STSRjdVQVAtm6CfmO0QPNFiKxaRk98ry66FpGpD86ns&dt=1682265915052&bpp=3&bdt=7540&idt=26632&shv=r20230418&mjsv=m202304170102&ptt=9&saldr=aa&abxe=1&cookie=ID%3D6d7adf2c01aece77%3AT%3D1682265941%3AS%3DALNI_MZFjsCNQ4Ko0exfoNIkopRqipytFQ&gpic=UID%3D00000c08aecb30ec%3AT%3D1682265941%3ART%3D1682265941%3AS%3DALNI_MY9U052984HmdQTAkx1Dl2XHewv-g&prev_fmts=0x0%2C728x90%2C580x280&nras=1&correlator=1411613859262&frm=20&pv=1&ga_vid=318566747.1682265926&ga_sid=1682265926&ga_hid=1830776151&ga_fc=1&u_tz=-420&u_his=1&u_h=768&u_w=1366&u_ah=720&u_aw=1366&u_cd=24&u_sd=1&dmc=8&adx=375&ady=2517&biw=1366&bih=649&scr_x=0&scr_y=0&eid=44759926%2C44759842%2C44773809%2C44759875%2C31071755%2C31074024&oid=2&pvsid=3689313981061835&tmod=1529795046&uas=3&nvt=2&fc=1920&brdim=0%2C0%2C0%2C0%2C1366%2C0%2C1366%2C720%2C1366%2C649&vis=1&rsz=%7C%7CeEbr%7C&abl=CS&pfx=0&cms=2&fu=128&bc=31&jar=2023-04-20-18&ifi=4&uci=a!4&btvi=2&fsb=1&xpc=FMb1PUD6uv&p=https%3A//thenationonlineng.net&dtd=26643 “Our long term plan is to strengthen Primary Health Care (PHC), not just at the facility level, but for the workforce, including doctors, nurses, midwives etc.
“We are also ensuring the facilities are well-equipped with water and infection prevention as well as control measures. At community level, we also want to ensure we have more community health workers.”
He further explained that: “When I talk about a weak healthcare system, I mean that there are not enough nurses and other midwives, there are not enough doctors, enough commodities from the supply chain because we don’t get the vaccines to the last mile .
“We are expanding cold chain capacity to ensure the availability of vaccines at all levels.
“Because of the weak primary healthcare system, when the COVID-19 came, the ability of the system to respond to different concurrent needs was really limited. So that’s why we saw that kind of slowed down on the progress.”
On her part, the UNICEF’s Health Manager, Dr. Dorothy Odongo, said: “We work with states to expand the cold chain system to have space for vaccines…
https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-5089981496810613&output=html&h=280&slotname=5547768205&adk=3717125966&adf=829004657&pi=t.ma~as.5547768205&w=580&fwrn=4&fwrnh=100&lmt=1682265909&rafmt=1&format=580×280&url=https%3A%2F%2Fthenationonlineng.net%2Funicef-2-2m-nigerian-children-not-vaccinated%2F&host=ca-host-pub-2644536267352236&fwr=0&fwrattr=true&rpe=1&resp_fmts=3&wgl=1&adsid=ChAI8K6TogYQ9L2SjKP7m8ggEj0A-NkYEga_QlUVE3-wgP77zamOvT-iYXHd1rOJ6STSRjdVQVAtm6CfmO0QPNFiKxaRk98ry66FpGpD86ns&dt=1682265915065&bpp=2&bdt=7554&idt=26651&shv=r20230418&mjsv=m202304170102&ptt=9&saldr=aa&abxe=1&cookie=ID%3D6d7adf2c01aece77-2200a4776fdc00e7%3AT%3D1682265941%3ART%3D1682265946%3AS%3DALNI_MZBWW08qESx3buagSvw0Qe4RnW5PQ&gpic=UID%3D00000c08aecb30ec%3AT%3D1682265941%3ART%3D1682265941%3AS%3DALNI_MY9U052984HmdQTAkx1Dl2XHewv-g&prev_fmts=0x0%2C728x90%2C580x280%2C580x131%2C1366x649&nras=2&correlator=1411613859262&frm=20&pv=1&ga_vid=318566747.1682265926&ga_sid=1682265926&ga_hid=1830776151&ga_fc=1&u_tz=-420&u_his=2&u_h=768&u_w=1366&u_ah=720&u_aw=1366&u_cd=24&u_sd=1&dmc=8&adx=375&ady=649&biw=1366&bih=649&scr_x=0&scr_y=0&eid=44759926%2C44759842%2C44773809%2C44759875%2C31071755%2C31074024&oid=2&psts=AHQMDFdejye-LwpMFmDtBgZCXF_9Q7vhCDmCxrWxgrIy_IStanuuFE9IGCyoQjDswPT91U__O3KUkPuFsUk0oM24c2Ay%2CAHQMDFcMj6nzR3cSBv0Nyvy7akkSn_twZnmNDO-c8Xlv__lati77Jh-a19Ma5oJmYTYxOSMzCKKESCH1npxxU3o2VtCOpA%2CAHQMDFfHYxIEWblgbi2oy7U_cpk0sNV3BghFlyPP_-6OXxg9FfyCG2hWMsMEBmGqmEvaPjwRLBYmxiR8PxY5kQyZ3M4zSQ&pvsid=3689313981061835&tmod=1529795046&uas=3&nvt=2&fc=1920&brdim=0%2C0%2C0%2C0%2C1366%2C0%2C1366%2C720%2C1366%2C649&vis=1&rsz=o%7Co%7CeE%7C&abl=NS&pfx=0&fu=128&bc=31&jar=2023-04-20-18&ifi=5&uci=a!5&fsb=1&xpc=d1BABiI1Sa&p=https%3A//thenationonlineng.net&dtd=M ‘’We use community mobilisers to convince people on need to vaccinate children. Traditional, religious leaders should drive the message by talking to their congregation and communities on right information about vaccines and benefits of vaccination.”
This raises the need for critical stakeholders at all levels to intensify efforts in mobilizing residents of their communities to uptake the vaccines.
Community leaders must make deliberate efforts to own the vaccination process of children in their various communities. Religious leaders on their part, must, for meaningful progress to be achieved in the vaccination process, use their pulpit to encourage their followers on the need to take their children to the clinic for immunization.
The federal, states and local governments must invest resources in the immunization process. A considerable budget must be earmarked for sensitization and behavioural change communication.
On the other hand, Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) working in the area of immunization must put on their thinking cap and fashion out ways to engage the affected communities to ensure increase in vaccination uptake.
The government at all levels and all critical stakeholders must take this issue serious because immunization is an essential, cost-effective strategy to reduce childhood morbidity and mortality which saves millions of children from dying each year.
