THE United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is set to vaccinate over 3.8 million children in four northern Nigerian states against measles.
The vaccination is aimed to curb measles among young children in Adamawa, Bauchi, Gombe, and Plateau states.
The health officer at UNICEF’s Bauchi Field Office, Patrick Akor, announced the campaign during a press conference in Bauchi on Friday, November 1, stating that the measles vaccination effort will kick off on Saturday and run for a week, according to Punch Newspaper.
“For the measles campaign, we have a target of 3.8 million children aged nine to 59 months across the four states.
“We have received over 4 million doses of measles vaccines, which have been supplied across these four states.”
In addition to the measles campaign, Akor highlighted an oral vaccination drive against polio in five northern states, targeting nearly 6.8 million children under five in Taraba, Plateau, Bauchi, Gombe, and Adamawa.
He said, “For the oral polio vaccination, we have a target of 6.8 million children aged zero to 59 months, which is under five years, across the five states of Taraba, Plateau, Bauchi, Gombe, and Adamawa.
“The total number of vaccines that have already been delivered is 7.4 million doses across these five states.
On his part, the agency’s Bauchi Field Office, George Eki said UNICEF in collaboration with the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHCDA) and state-level partners, has provided logistical support, including vaccine distribution and cold chain systems essential for safe vaccine storage.
“There is logistical support we provide to the states. We have made vaccines available across the states for the campaign, and some other commodities are also made available through UNICEF’s support.
“The cold chain system that supports the cooling and storage of vaccines has also been provided by UNICEF.
“More importantly, advocacy, communication, and social mobilisation are core areas of UNICEF’s mandate in this exercise, where we provide support to all the states to ensure that people are informed about when the campaign will happen,” he said.
On Wednesday, April 19, 2023, in its annual report on the state of children’s health, the United Nations disclosed that 67 million children partially or fully missed routine vaccines globally between 2019 and 2021 because of lockdowns and healthcare disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Of the 67 million children whose vaccinations were “severely disrupted,” 48 million missed out on routine vaccines entirely, UNICEF said, flagging concerns about potential polio and measles outbreaks.
The report stressed that Africa and South Asia were particularly hard hit with low vaccination coverage during that period.
The percentage of children vaccinated worldwide slipped 5 points to 81 per cent – a low not seen since 2008 as a result of the decline in vaccine coverage among children in 112 countries.
Usman Mustapha is a solution journalist with International Centre for Investigative Reporting. You can easily reach him via: umustapha@icirnigeria.com. He tweets @UsmanMustapha_M