THE World Health Organization (WHO) is collaborating with the Federal Government to improve routine immunization in the country by vaccinating 930,000 children annually.

The WHO Team Lead, Vaccine Preventable Diseases and Polio Eradication, Dr Kofi Boateng, disclosed this during an engagement programme organised by the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency with other development partners on optimised outreach in Abuja.

According to him, the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in an estimated 33 million African children not being immunised from 2019 to 2021.

“What we have noticed in Nigeria for the outreach sessions that are supposed to go to the communities, we are not seeing the number of yield in terms of the number of children vaccinated over a longer period.

“We are discussing the issue of partners supporting the state in terms of resourcing, engaging the state authorities to make sure the funds are released to support this plan. In the WHO, we have a presence in all 36 states, and we also have staff in almost every ward supporting polio eradication and other PHC services.”

WHO said it will leverage the support of the government to make sure all plans at those levels are of high quality.

“WHO supports strategic policy, we also monitor what is happening. We have teams in the fields that would be supporting the state in terms of coordination, planning and implementation.

“We are discussing the issue of partners supporting the state in terms of resourcing, engaging the state authorities to make sure the funds are released to support this plan. In the WHO, we have a presence in all 36 states and we also have staff in almost every ward supporting polio eradication and other PHC services. So we will leverage that to support the government to make sure all plans at those levels are of high quality.

“WHO supports strategic policy, we also monitor what is happening. We have the teams in the fields that would be supporting the state in terms of coordination, planning and implementation.

Nigeria’s childhood vaccination coverage is low. It falls short of Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP) targets and this puts a large number of children at risk of death from vaccine-preventable diseases.

According to the 2021 National Immunisation Coverage Survey (NICS), at least 64 per cent of children between ages 12-23 months in Nigeria did not receive all recommended vaccines in the last five years.