Nigeria requires $284m for immunisation goal ……. Vanguard

April 18, 2016 Omoniyi Osadare Health 0

On 29 July, a child receives a dose of oral polio vaccine during the UNICEF-supported measles and polio immunization campaign under way in the Ifo refugee camp in North Eastern Province, near the Kenya-Somalia border. The camp for Somalia refugees is among three that comprise the Dadaab camps, located near the town of Dadaab in Garissa District. By 2 August 2011, the crisis in the Horn of Africa affecting primarily Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia and Djibouti continues, with a worsening drought, rising food prices and an ongoing conflict in Somalia. More than 12 million people are threatened by the regions worst drought in 60 years. Somalia faces one of the worlds most severe food security crises as it continues to endure an extended humanitarian emergency, with tens of thousands fleeing into Kenya and Ethiopia. More than 10,000 Somalis a week are now arriving in the Dadaab camps in north-eastern Kenya, where aid partners are struggling to meet the needs of 400,000 people. In drought-affected areas of Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia and Djibouti, some 500,000 severely malnourished children are at imminent risk of dying, while a further 1.6 million moderately malnourished children and the wider-affected population are at high risk of disease. In northern Kenya, more than 25 per cent of children suffer from global acute malnutrition. UNICEF, together with Governments, UN, NGO and community partners, is supporting a range of interventions and essential services, especially for the displaced and for refugees, including feeding programmes, immunization mass vaccination campaigns are now underway in drought-affected parts of Kenya and Somalia and other health outreach, as well as access to safe water and to improve sanitation. In Kenya, the Ministry of Health, UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO) have reached 290,000 children with polio and measles vaccinations in refugee host communities near the Dadaab camps. UNICEF is providing the vaccines, as well as deworming tablets and vitamin A (to boost childrens immunity). A similar campaign is now under way to immunize children in the Dadaab camps. A joint United Nations appeal for humanitarian assistance for the region requires US$2.5 billion, less than half of which has been committed.

The Executive Director, National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr. Ado Muhammed. has said Nigeria required about $284 million to achieve the target goal in immunisation. Dr. Ado made this known ahead of the conference of Anglophone Africa Peer Review Workshop on sustainable immunisation financing in Abuja. He told journalists in Abuja that vaccines and immunisation financing were very critical to Nigeria’s anticipated eradication of polio virus in the country next year.

He said: “As it is now, we require about $210 million for polio campaign. With support from partners and funding from government for 2016, we have been able to bridge the gap. We do not have a gap for polio campaign in 2016. “However, by 2017, we have about $284 million required for polio campaign. Taking cognizance that the Federal Government has been consistent in terms of providing resources this year, it is providing about $80 million as part of its contribution for polio campaign and partners are making up the difference. “With that, we believe that next year, we should be able to give to Africa and Nigerians a polio-free country. “We are very optimistic that by July 2017, we will deliver to the President a polio-free country.” Muhammed explained that Nigeria had “spent over 20 months without any case of polio.

“Nigeria has been removed as a polio endemic country by WHO, but Nigeria is not yet a polio-free country. I think we need to understand the difference between the two. “Nigeria no more transmit polio virus; we have been de-listed from the list of polio endemic countries. But we need to know that it will take us close to two years to be free.”

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