Immunisation shields dangerous infections and prevents unnecessary deaths
The Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Mohammed Pate, has been proactive on the issue of children immunisation. Two years ago, Nigeria became the first country in the world to roll out a new vaccine (called Men5CV) recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO), which protects people against meningitis. But perhaps due to the security challenge that plagues the nation, routine immunisation and the inability to access certain areas remains a major problem. Health authorities therefore need the support of critical stakeholders, including the media, religious and traditional leaders as well as the civil society, to succeed in the campaign for the routine immunisation of children in the country.
Preventable and infectious diseases that children are routinely immunised against through the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPCHDA) include Polio, Measles, Yellow Fever, Tuberculosis, Hepatitis B and Diphtheria. The current outbreak of Diphtheria that has led to several deaths across some Northern states shows how fatal it can be to ignore such immunisation. Over the years, there have been reports that the country’s childhood vaccination coverage falls short of Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP) targets, making many children in Nigeria vulnerable to death and vaccine-preventable diseases.
Lending his weight to the campaign, the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar has highlighted the immense benefits of vaccination for children. We need other important voices. The United Nations Children’s Funds (UNICEF) recently revealed that 67 million children across the world missed out on either some or all routine vaccinations between 2019 and 2021. More disturbing is that on the number of children at the risk of death and vaccine-preventable diseases, Nigeria is second only to India, although we must commend Pate for his efforts. “We cannot allow confidence in routine immunisations to become another victim of the pandemic. Otherwise, the next wave of deaths could be of more children with measles, diphtheria, or other preventable diseases,” UNICEF Executive Director, Catherine Russell warned.
The WHO report that Nigeria still has about two million zero-dose children who are yet to receive any form of vaccination is deeply concerning. More worrisome is that cases of polio virus have also been reported in Nigeria. “Every day, Nigeria loses about 2,300 under five years old children and 145 women of childbearing age. Most of these deaths are occurring in northern Nigeria,” according to the NPHCDA Executive Director, Muyi Aina who lamented the avoidable deaths being suffered by the country as a result of poor vaccination.
Meanwhile, the Paediatric Association of Nigeria (PAN) has kept warning about the danger of high number of zero-dose children in our country. “The statistics of children who have received all the vaccines in the national programme is 23 per cent which is low. It is not surprising that our under-five mortality rate is so high,” said PAN president, Ekanem Ekure who disclosed that most of these children are in urban slums, conflict areas, and remote and hard-to-reach communities. “We have the highest under-five mortality rate in the world, and unfortunately, these children are dying from diseases that can be prevented, for which the government has made vaccines available for free.”
Immunisation as a measure used to track progress towards lowering child morbidity and mortality is one of the most cost-effective public health initiatives. It is thus essential that the health authorities do more to ensure that all children are immunised and protected. Government at all levels as well as other critical stakeholders must also act to “catch up” with those missed vaccinations to prevent more deadly disease outbreaks. More importantly, there is an urgent need to intensify education and awareness of the deadly consequences of avoiding childhood vaccinations. Prevention, which is the whole idea of vaccination, is better than cure.