UNICEF Advocates Routine Immunization To Combat Preventable Diseases

By Segun Adegoke and Blessing Enebeli

The United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), has called for a scale-up of routine immunization for children in Nigeria, saying it would help protect them against preventable diseases.

Chief of UNICEF Field Office for Southwest Nigeria, Celine Lafoucriere, made the call on Wednesday at the opening of a two-day media dialogue in Lagos themed: A Media Dialogue To Enhance Routine Immunization And To Reduce Zero-dose Children, organized in partnership with Lagos State Primary Healthcare Board.

Lafoucriere stated that vaccines are crucial to child health and development, stressing that it is a right that must be given to every child by their country of birth.

“Vaccines are an essential fundamental right to every child and they remain critical to improving health outcomes and reducing inequalities,” she said.

The UNICEF Chief revealed that despite the benefits of immunization, a huge number of Nigerian children are not vaccinated, which puts them at risk of contracting various preventable diseases.

She noted that most of the unvaccinated children in the country live in far-flung, hard to reach areas and are often times marginalized, giving them little chance of survival when hit by preventable diseases.

Lafoucriere who emphasized the need to turn the tide against preventable diseases, noted with concern the grim statistics of unvaccinated children in the country.

“We still have a very pressing challenge in Nigeria where 2.3 million children still have received no vaccines at all. These are called the zero-dose children and are mostly in marginalized areas, hard to reach areas and, vaccines remain essential to their health.”

She explained that UNICEF in conjunction with government and other partners are leading the charge to increase the rate of vaccination in Nigeria, prioritizing 100 local government areas in 18 states with the highest number of zero-dose children.

She added that the latest vaccination drive consisted in increasing the number of vaccinated children by 50 per cent each year and 30 per cent by 2025.

Lafoucriere also urged the media to join the effort, emphasizing the need to work together to achieve best results for the children and for the country.

She said, “They need us right now and we need you, the media to join hands to accelerate the rate of immunization in Nigeria to ensure that by each year we increase the rate of vaccinated children by 50 per cent.

“Your own influence is very important. You can catalyse actions, help dispel rumors and misinformation about vaccines.

“By working collectively, we can build a resilient health system that is capable of reaching each and every child, leaving no one behind.”

The Immunization Programme Coordinator, Lagos State Primary Healthcare Board, Akinpelu Adetola, in his remarks, said the target of the state is to provide protection for residents by getting as many people as possible vaccinated.

“If you look at the totality of how you prevent diseases, the first step is vaccination before you start looking for other lifestyle changes and treatment. And if we can get a good number of our population, ideally we say 90 percent, vaccinated, we would have done well.

“But our target as a state is to make sure that every child is vaccinated. We don’t want to leave any child behind. And what that means is that, once you get that target, there’s a ripple effect.”

Akinpelu added that the immunity gaps created by the covid-19 lockdown would be closed by an aggressive upcoming statewide immunization campaign in Lagos, which is projected to vaccinate about 21 million residents.

“The target of the campaign is to vaccinate the citizens against measles, yellow fever and also to ensure that our girls that are yet to get the HPV vaccine use that opportunity to get the vaccination.

“For the measles vaccine, were looking at children from the ages of 9 months to 59 months. And this is a unique opportunity for those that have not gotten their first dose of the vaccine to get it and for those that have not gotten their second dose to also get it. The drive is also for the state to achieve herd immunity.

“The target age range for the yellowfever vaccine is from 9 months to 44 years of age. If you look at that, it gives us about 80 perecnt of the state population which is where we arrived at the 21 million used as our target,” he added.

Speaking on the role of UNICEF in strengthening childhood immunization in Nigeria, the Social Behavior Change Communication Specialist for UNICEF Nigeria, Aderonke Akinola-Akinwole, said the world body works with existing structures in every community.

The strategies employed are centred around community engagement that are themselves community-led, community-centric and community relevant. Because what applies in each community differs.

“UNICEF supports structures on ground, we do not create parallel structures. We engage existing structures to build their capacities to own and drive community-led innovations to build trust in vaccines.”

Aderonke then urged stakeholders to help propagate the message of routine immunization for children, stressing that tomorrow will come but tomorrow must meet children who are healthy enough to be able to take on tomorrow.