By Asmau Ahmad
The National Primary Health care Development Agency (NPHCDA) says it will conduct a mass vaccination of children in all parts of the country, as part of celebrations to mark the 2019 African Vaccination week.
The Executive Director of the NPHCDA, Dr Faisal Shuaib, made this known at a news conference in commemoration of 2019 Africa Vaccination Week on Thursday in Abuja.
According to him, the African Region has set out April 22 to 28 as the African Vaccination week.
He said the week was set aside to strengthen immunization services and systems in order to draw the attention of all critical stakeholders to the unlimited opportunities vaccines offer humanity in saving lives especially the vulnerable children.
He therefore appealed to all parents, guardians and caregivers to make their wards available for the exercise.
Shuaib added that immunization remains the cheapest and yet the most effective lifesaving health intervention to all children in human history.
According to him, there has been no report of vaccine shortage anywhere in Nigeria, in the past years, the vaccines are provided free to all children in the country.
“We are assuring all Nigerians that all the vaccines in the National Immunization schedule are prequalified safe, and endorsed by the World Health Organization and the National Agency for Foods, Drugs and Administration Control.”
Shuaib said in spite of impressive and commendable progress on immnunisation coverage, a lot need to be done to meet the target for elimination of vaccine preventable disease such as measles, rubella, maternal and neonatal tetanus and diphtheria.
“Many children still miss out on vaccination, particularly in the poorest, marginalized, and conflict affected communities.
‘’In Africa, one in five children still do not receive all the necessary and basic vaccines,” he said.
The executive director noted that the country has achieved improvement in routine immunization coverage from 48 per cent in 2015 to 57 per cent in 2018, as revealed by the recent SMART survey conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics.
GAVI Champion for Africa, Dr Vivian Elumelu, stressed the need for collaboration with the private sector so as to improve on vaccine coverage in the country.
“As a strong player in the Private sector, am calling on other players to come out and invest more in vaccine coverage in the country.
‘’There is need for strong collaboration both at the local government level and the state level so that more Nigerians will be reached.”
According to her, the stakeholders in the health sector need to focus more on reaching out to the people in the rural community.
She further added that GAVI has pledged the sum of one billion dollars and the Federal Government nine billion dollars for the advancement of the healthcare sector.
“There is need for strong collaboration both at the local government level and the state level so that more Nigerians will be reached during immunization process.
“We will ensure that all children in Nigeria get the best in terms of vaccination. We will continue to protect them from all preventable disease,’’ she said.
