Angela Onwuzoo
The number of unvaccinated children in Lagos State has hit an all-time high of 190, 000, the United Nations Children’s Fund has revealed.
UNICEF further disclosed that Lagos has the highest number in the south-west geopolitical zone of the country, followed by Ogun State with about 130,000.
The international organisation, however, identified lack of awareness, poor access to immunisation services, and vaccine hesitancy as major drivers of zero-dose children in Nigeria.
About 2.2 million Nigerian children do not receive a single dose of any vaccine every year, according to the global body.
This, it added, made Nigeria the country with the second-highest number of zero-dose children in the world.
UNICEF Health Specialist, Dr Ijeoma Agbo, stated this during an exclusive interview with PUNCH Healthwise in commemoration of this year’s World Immunisation Week.
World Immunisation Week, celebrated from April 24 to 30, aims to highlight the collective action needed and to promote the use of vaccines to protect people of all ages against disease.
The theme of this year’s commemoration is, ‘Humanly Possible: Saving Lives through Immunisation’.
This year‘s week will celebrate 50 years of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation – recognising the collective efforts of stakeholders to save and improve countless lives from vaccine-preventable diseases.
Speaking with our correspondent, Agbo said the alarming number of unvaccinated children in the country remains a big concern.
She said, “We are still seeing these pockets of unvaccinated children despite all the efforts that have been made.
“We have seen that some of the challenges remain the lack of awareness and knowledge.
“We have unvaccinated children that account for about 2.2 million in Nigeria and particularly in certain states like Lagos and Kano, just based on our population.”
She noted that Lagos, Kano, and Sokoto states are among the states that have the highest numbers of unvaccinated children in the country.
Agbo who covers the south-west geo-political zone made up of Lagos, Oyo, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, and Ekiti states, said, “Within the south-west states, Lagos is leading in terms of having the highest number of unvaccinated children.
“As of last year, we had over 190,000 unvaccinated children followed by Ogun State with 130,000 unvaccinated children.”
The UNICEF health specialist noted that some people are quite aware of immunisation but lack the knowledge about the age children are supposed to receive it.
“Some don’t understand the importance of it and even when you speak to some caregivers, they don’t even know how to go about it and where to get it from. So, we have seen that knowledge and awareness is still a major problem.
“Another problem that we have seen is in terms of access. Poverty is a big problem that we know is still rampant in Nigeria.
“For some, even the finance to access the health facilities where they will get these vaccines is still a huge problem, especially in our hard-to-reach areas, conflict areas. That has been a major issue in terms of accessing these immunisation services”, she stated.
The health expert also said myths and misconceptions around vaccines, especially among people in rural areas, also contribute to the burden of unvaccinated children in the country.
Agbo added, “Another problem that we have seen and we saw it quite rampant during the HPV vaccine introduction is vaccine hesitancy. It is a big challenge that has cropped up.
“We are trying to see how we can collectively bring that down. Vaccine hesitancy is a problem because people don’t have trust in the vaccine. There are a lot of myths and misconceptions about vaccination.
“I want to say that those are the three major issues that have contributed to the high numbers of unvaccinated children within the country and our various states.”
Commenting on this year’s immunisation week, Agbo said vaccines are the only single public health intervention that has been seen to prevent diseases.
Agbo, who stressed the need for the government, community and religious leaders, healthcare providers, and the media to raise more awareness on immunisation to ensure that no child is left behind, said the week is celebrated to highlight the importance of vaccines.
The UNICEF health specialist said, “With this week, we can raise awareness on the diseases that vaccines can prevent and of course, continue to showcase the fact that vaccination is a public health triumph.
“It is the only single public health intervention that has been seen to prevent diseases. So, we want to focus on that and continue to raise awareness about vaccination.”
She noted that this year’s commemoration is quite strategic, citing the achievements made in the last 50 years in saving the lives of millions of people from vaccine-preventable diseases through immunisation.
“This year in particular is quite strategic because of the theme – Humanly Possible: Saving lives through immunisation. And if you look at when we had the expanded programme on immunisation, it is exactly 50 years ago. It just showcases the triumphs and achievements that we have made in the last 50 years.
“So in 50 years alone, we have saved over 450 million lives just with vaccination, and that translates to one every 10 seconds, which is a huge improvement.
“In these 50 years, we have eradicated smallpox. We have almost eradicated polio. We only have two countries that still have the wild polio virus’ ‘, she said.
With vaccination, the health expert pointed, out that a lot of children are now living up to five years of age, unlike before, when they used to die from vaccine-preventable diseases.
The UNICEF specialist urged the government to invest in immunisation services, emphasising that much more needs to be done.
According to her, a lot can be achieved by allocating additional funds and resources to ensure the provision of these essential services.
She emphasised that resources are crucial in the procurement of vaccines for children as well as in transporting the vaccines to the end users.
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