HEALTH: Nigeria Launches A New Immunisation Programme

By Toye Olori Reprint | | Print |

Toye Olori

LAGOS, Sep 21 1998 (IPS) - Last year, when Tayo collapsed with fever her parents rushed her to a private clinic in the Nigerian city of Lagos where she was treated for malaria.

A month later, Tayo’s left leg began showing signs of numbness, prompting her parents to return her to the doctor who diagnosed her as suffering from poliomyelitis.

“None of my other two children has the ailment,” says Esther Eyitola, Tayo’s mother. The two, aged six and nine, were immunised against diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, measles, tuberculosis and polio — the six childhood killer diseases.

Tayo, 3, had not been immunised when she was born because Nigeria’s Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) had virtually collapsed.

Now a five-year action plan, aimed at eradicating the six killer diseases, had been launched in the administrative capital of Abuja on Sep 16.

The plan, which winds up in 2003, focuses on the eradication of poliomyelitis and the strengthening of the routine immunisation service as well as increased surveillance on the diseases.

“The priority of the healthcare planners is to achieve total eradication of poliomyelitis in Nigeria. It is envisaged that a successful implementation of the programme would culminate in the total elimination of polio,” says Debo Adeyemi, Nigeria’s Minister of Health.

The first National Immunisation Days (NIDs) have been slated for Nov 4-5, while the second will take place Dec 9-10.

To ensure proper and adequate planning, Adeyemi says, they will seek the support of the media to mobilise parents and advise them to immunise their children.

Nigeria’s 36 state health commissioners have been asked to ensure that print and electronic media in their states are mobilised and committed to publishing NIDs information, education and communication materials.

“It is time for information and health policies to be synchronised in a way that would enhance the image of the nation and have impact on the survival, development and well-being of the Nigerian child,” says John Nwodo, Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture.

“The task of ensuring a greater future for our children should not be left to government alone, it should also be the collective responsibility of all families, communities, non-governmental organisations, social, cultural, religious, and business groups,” he says.

Nigerian authorities say the new programme will avoid the mistakes made by the EPI during its campaign, launched in 1984, to vaccinate children and pregnant women against the six killer diseases.

EPI’s door-to-door campaign had achieved an 81 percent coverage for children 0-23 months of age by the end of 1990.

However, coverage fell from 65.2 percent in 1991 to 25 percent in 1993. Only one fourth of targeted children, aged 0-11 months, were immunised against measles, diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus in 1993.

Between 1990 and 1993, BCG coverage also dropped from 80 percent to 34 percent.

Basal Calmette-Guerin (BCG) is a strain of tubercle bacillus that has lost the power to cause tuberculosis, used to prepare a vaccine against the disease.

Nigeria’s immunisation exercise slowed down under the late Gen. Sani Abacha’s rule (1993-1998), which was characterised by political crisis, underfunding and lack of vehicles to carry out the programme across the vast west African country.

More than one million children die each year in Nigeria from the six preventable diseases. Poliomyelitis, which accounts for the majority of these deaths, maim thousands of children, according to the UN Children’s Funds (Unicef) 1998 State of World Children Report.