UNICEF To Vaccinate 6.8m Northern Children Against Polio, Measles

United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is embarking on integrated measles and oral polio vaccination campaigns in Plateau, Bauchi, Gombe, Adamawa and Taraba states, targeting 6,815,000 children.

The health officer of the UN agency, Mr. Patrick Akor, told newsmen in Bauchi yesterday that the exercise, which was targeting 95 percent coverage, had 7, 473, 450 doses of measles and polio vaccines already supplied to the target states.

Akor said for the measles vaccination, the exercise was targeting 3, 837, 888 children aged between 9 and 15 years and for oral polio, the target was slightly over four million for children 0 to 59 months.
The agency’s social behaviour change specialist, UNICEF Bauchi Field Office, Mr. George Eki, noted with concern that measles remained the biggest threat to children.

According to him, measles is responsible for mortality and blindness in children, as well as other life-threatening conditions.

Eki said it had become imperative that the government, with support from UNICEF and other UN agencies, ensure that children, wherever they are in the country, are protected from measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases.