The National Primary Health Care Development Agency, on Tuesday, advised Nigerians to take children aged zero to 23 months to vaccination sites to enable them to have access to childhood immunisation, which encompasses vaccines for childhood diseases such as polio, yellow fever and measles, among others.
This is as the agency intimated to the public of plans to integrate the COVID-19 mass vaccination campaign with childhood immunisation.
The Executive Director of the agency, Faisal Shuaib, disclosed this during a parley with journalists in Abuja.
The PUNCH reports that Shuaib had earlier decried the suspension of childhood immunisation, which his agency blamed the coronavirus pandemic for the outbreak of the circulating vaccine-derived polio.
He said, “We will also like to inform the general public that in this phase of COVID-19 mass vaccination, we plan to integrate the campaign with childhood immunisation and other PHC services.
“What this simply means is that alongside the COVID-19 vaccines, childhood vaccines will also be available at COVID-19 vaccination sites. Consequently, parents or guardians with children aged zero to 23 months are urged to take them along to the vaccination sites.
“The childhood vaccines protect against polio, whooping cough, measles, yellow fever, tetanus, tuberculosis and other childhood preventable diseases. This is to ensure that while we are trying so hard to control the transmission of COVID-19, we do not neglect other PHC services or even have outbreaks of childhood vaccine-preventable diseases on our hands.
“We urge you to please tell your colleagues, friends and loved ones to go to the vaccination sites or health centres nearest to them with their zero to 23 months old children for vaccination against childhood vaccine-preventable diseases.
“We call on Nigerians to avail themselves of the opportunity in the ongoing mass vaccination exercise to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
“Our record as of today, Tuesday, January 25, 2022, shows that 14,093,873 eligible persons have received the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine in Nigeria, while 5,252,406 eligible Nigerians have been fully vaccinated. However, as one would expect, these results are not evenly distributed across the states of the federation.
“Our deep dive into state performances reveals that Nasarawa, Jigawa, FCT, Ogun and Kwara have remained the top five performing states on COVID-19 vaccine uptake. It is noteworthy to mention that Jigawa and Lagos have each vaccinated about 1.5 million eligible Nigerians with the first dose, while the FCT, Nasarawa, Lagos and Delta are leading on second dose administration with more than 10 per cent of eligible populations in each of the states already vaccinated.
“On the walls of this hall, you can see the states’ performance charts displayed. It is in our spirit of transparency and accountability that we consider it important to keep Nigerians informed about the progress of COVID-19 vaccination in the states. We also believe that this information will serve as an encouragement for the states in the vaccine uptake going forward.”
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