NPHCDA says 3.2 million Nigerian children not immunized in 2012

The National Primary Health Care Development Agency,NPHCDA, on Tuesday raised the alarm over high number of unimmunized children in Nigeria.

The Chief Medical Officer/ head Routine Immunisation of the agency, Dr. Mahmud Zubair who disclosed this during a two day Routine Immunization Stakeholders’ Meeting held at Roban Hotel, Enugu said that about 3.2 million children were not immunized in 2012.

He stated that the sad development was raising risk of disease outbreaks. According to him, out of the figure, about 250, 000 were children from the South East Geo-political zone.

Also speaking at the occasion, South East Zonal Coordinator of NPHCDA, Dr Ngozi Nwosu, expressed regrets that despite efforts of the Federal Government to improve routine immunisation services, the exercise has not remarkably improved.

She noted that to effectively carry out its function in the area of routine immunisation, the Government of Nigeria through NAHCDA procures and distributes potent vaccines for infants and pregnant women to all states and council areas.

According to her, Nigeria had gone the extra-mile of introducing the new pentavalent vaccine to reduce the risk of infants and young children from dying from pneumonia and meningitis.

“Besides procuring vaccines, the Federal Government also provides and distributes cold chain equipment including freezers of all types, fridges and other materials as well as training and retraining of staff on immunisation related issues.

“Despite all these efforts, routine immunisation coverage has not remarkably improved. It has gone from high levels of 85-90% in the 1990s to less than 51% in 2012.

“The minimum target of 80% coverage has remained elusive. Huge numbers of unimmunized children continue to accumulate, posing a threat to the health of the majority of people and raising the risk of disease outbreaks”, she stated.