By Adedapo Adesanya
The Nigerian government, through the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHCDA), in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) and its partners, including Gavi The vaccine alliance, is intensifying various strategies to optimise Big Catch-up campaign to improve vaccination coverage across the country.
In Nigeria, an estimated 6.2 million children missed receiving a single dose of their routine vaccines from 2019 to 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Speaking at the recently concluded stakeholders’ immunization meeting tagged Engagement with states on optimized outreach strategy, in Abuja, the Executive Secretary NPHCDA, Dr Faisal Shuaib, expressed optimism that with the trajectory, Nigeria has the willpower to cover 80 per cent of the targeted zero-dose population by 2028.
The goal is to reduce the number of zero-dose children in Nigeria by 15 per cent by 2024 and 80 per cent by the end of 2028 (the 2018 strategic document for 10 years).
Dr Shuaib stated that the workshop is important to strategize and adopt mechanisms that will ensure zero-dose and under-vaccinated children in Nigeria are being vaccinated.
He explained that with the caregivers having little or no understanding of the importance of taking their children to health facilities for vaccination, it has become crucial for the government to devise mechanisms to ensure no child is left behind.
“The meeting is critical for us to achieve the immunization target goal. The leadership from the national and states level have together agreed that there is a need for a paradigm shift in the way we get vaccines to children.
The workshop is to devise strategies to take vaccines to where the people live, especially to reach the children in the most difficult areas,” he said.
Dr Shuaib also noted that some of the mechanisms to be adopted include: improving the leadership, building the capacity of the leaders, increasing monitoring routine immunization sessions and supervision, and improving accountability and integration of health activities to ensure encompassing health services.
Figures from the 2021 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) show that immunization coverage in Nigeria is still low. Data shows that at least 6.2 million children have never received or missed all their vaccines in the past five years.
The Big Catch-up provides the greatest opportunity to bring Nigeria back on track to achieving the targets for the Immunization Agenda 2030. This meeting is to support Nigeria in preparing to catch up with the 6.2 million children that did not receive any vaccine for the stipulated years.