UNICEF Vaccinates Over 9 million U-5 Children in 5 Northern states

From Paul Orude Bauchi
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) begins vaccination of no fewer than 9.8 million children against measles, polio and other vaccine preventable diseases among children in Adamawa, Bauchi, Gombe, Plateau and Taraba States.

This was disclosed by Patrick Akor, Health Officer with the Bauchi Field Office of UNICEF, while briefing journalists at the Office in Bauchi, on Friday

Akor explained that UNICEF is supporting the five states in the Bauchi Field Office to conduct the 2024 integrated vaccination campaign to curb polio, measles and other vaccine preventable diseases among children.

He said the support was in terms of logistics, supply of vaccines, publicity and other things required for a successful camp targeting over nine million Under-five children.

Akor revealed that the Oral Polio Vaccination targets no fewer than 6, 815,691 children, aged 0 to 59 months while over 3 million children are targeted for measles vaccination during the campaign which begins today (Saturday November 2, 2024).

He said the campaign would cover Bauchi, Taraba, Adamawa, Gombe and Plateau States, adding that the integrated measles vaccination campaign alongside with others for children would be administered within the next one week.

He said further that the move was prompted by the inability of Nigeria to record the 95 percent vaccination target coverage.

“The last measles campaign conducted was in 2022 and this has revealed that as a country we didn’t meet our target coverage of 95 percent and we know that measles remains a big threat to children”, he said.

The Health officer noted that measles and other child related diseases are responsible for mortality, blindness and some other health life threatening conditions.

Akor stressed that it was imperative that the governments with support from UNICEF and other UN agencies actually carry out the campaign to ensure that children whether in remote areas, security compromise areas are protected from measles and other vaccine preventable diseases.

The UNICEF Health officer explained that while Gombe, Plateau, Bauchi and Adamawa would be implementing measles vaccination campaign alongside other diseases such as polio, Taraba state will be implementing the OBR which is just polio.

According to him, UNICEF has been working alongside other partners and the federal government through the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency and the state agencies to ensure that different aspects of the campaigns are covered.

Also speaking, Social Behavioral Change Specialist with the UNICEF, George Eki said that Bauchi Field Office has made logistics support available to the 5 states, especially the vaccines to ensure the success of the campaign.

Eki added that, there are also commodities which UNICEF has provided to ensure proper storage of the vaccines, including advocacy Communication and Social Mobilization to boost wider coverage.

He explained that UNICEF is providing support to all the states to ensure that the general public become aware of the vaccination campaign and the age bracket of the would be vaccinated children.

“We have done this through various Community engagement activities, engaging traditional leaders, religious leaders, Community leaders and even teachers, because we know that those to benefit from the vaccines are mostly school children,” he said.

“In terms of zero dose, I will use Bauchi, we have 13 LGs that are zero dose.
“You have been following from the beginning of this year, the series of outbreaks that have happened, even across the other states like Gombe, we have area where we had cases of meningitis, the simple reason why we are having outbreaks is that children are not vaccinated completely, if all children are vaccinated fully we won’t have outbreaks.

“So, for zero dose, we cannot sit down at this time and age and still have children in the communities that have not taken a single vaccine. It is the right of the child to be protected against all these vaccines preventable diseases, so this campaign is obviously made to reach out to every child”