The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has said that Sokoto, Kebbi and Zamfara states account for 186,452 children who have not received any immunisation (zero dose) in the Northwest zone.
UNICEF health specialist, Sokoto field office, Dr Danjuma Nehemiah, disclosed this yesterday at a 2-day media dialogue on Routine Immunisation and Zero Dose Campaign, organised by UNICEF in partnership with Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara states Primary Health Care Development Agencies.
He said Sokoto State accounts for 122,015 zero dose children in 13 local government areas (LGAs), Kebbi State, 17,352 in three LGAs and Zamfara State, 47,085 in six LGAs.
According to him, there is improvement in immunisation uptake in the region but he expressed concern over the low pace.
“There is improvement but the movement is very slow. Some of the indicators show that with the way we are going, it will take so many years for us to achieve our target.
“If after every five years you are achieving three percent increase only, then it will take so many years to reach the 85 per cent target expected for routine immunisation coverage,” he stated.
Nehemiah said that Kebbi has achieved more than three-fold improvement over the two other states due to intervention that was provided some years back by the European Union, where a lot of outreaches were done in hard-to-reach communities.
He said the number of zero dose LGAs in Kebbi State reduced drastically from seven to three in 2022, adding that the state has been exceeding the 70 percent target for zero dose reduction over the years with 85 percent coverage so far in 2023.
Earlier, the chief of UNICEF field office Sokoto, Dr Maryam Darwesh, noted that states covered by the Sokoto field office have the highest burden of un-immunised children in Nigeria, with the field office harbouring 22 LGAs out of the 100 high burden zero dose LGAs in the country.
Represented by the health manager, UNICEF Sokoto field office, Dr Shamina Sharmin, Darwesh said the recent outbreaks of diphtheria in Kebbi, Sokoto, and Zamfara states were found to have occurred in locations with zero-dose children. “This points to the imperative of strengthening routine immunisation as the outbreaks signpost the danger posed to children’s lives by low immunisation coverage levels,” she stressed.
Darwesh, therefore, urged the Nigerian government to build on the gains made in routine immunisation by sustaining awareness of the importance in the minds of caregivers, communities, decision-makers, and the public.
Quoting the National Immunisation Coverage Survey (NICS) 2021, she noted that Nigeria has made progress in immunisation, with national routine immunisation coverage of children receiving all three doses of the pentavalent vaccine at 57 percent.
However, she stated that the completeness of routine immunisation coverage is 36 percent, adding that for northwest Nigeria, the figure is only 25 percent.
She expressed UNICEF’s commitment to providing caregivers and communities with fact-based information on vaccines.
