UNICEF, WHO, Others Take Immunisation Campaign to Vaccinate Children in Remote Areas of Rivers State

Blessing Ibunge reports that in commemoration with the World Immunisation Week, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO), Rivers State Primary Health Centre and others, held a five-day sensitisation and immunisation exercise for children in communities across various Local Government Areas of Rivers State

Eighteen-year-old Happiness Tombari, a single mother of a 10-month-old son, was scared and confused about how to handle her child’s ill health at a fishing port settlement in Akpajo community in Eleme Local Government Area of Rivers State, when health personnel from a Primary Health Care Centre on a special free immunisation outreach arrived, sensitising and inviting parents to bring their children for vaccination. Initially hesitant, Happiness decided to comply after seeing her son’s condition.

The health personnel observed that the child, now 10 months old, had never been immunised. Though they attempted to vaccinate him, the presence of rashes led the team to advise a doctor’s diagnosis. Accompanied by THISDAY’s correspondent and a health consultant, Sandra James, the mother was persuaded to visit the health centre for a proper assessment. The attending doctor made some recommendations, after which the baby received his first BCG vaccine and other doses for disease prevention.

Dispelling Myths Through Community Champions

Like Happiness, many mothers were sceptical about immunisation due to myths circulating in their neighbourhoods. But Mrs Philomena Bassey, a resident of Sand-Fill in Eleme, stood out. Though her children are beyond the age of routine immunisation, she goes around her community encouraging neighbours to bring their children for vaccination.

According to Mrs Bassey, “Constant immunisation in the past made my children to be very healthy. When I give birth to my children, two days after I give them BCG, and I never missed the dates for a follow-up vaccination on them.

“Though some of my neighbours do not understand the importance of the immunisation, I make efforts to personally take their children for vaccination at the health centre. Some of the mothers that refused to take their children for the immunisation, have their children suffered from various health conditions; like cough, measles, serious fever and other diseases.”

Vaccines Offered

Community health worker, Blessing Okanje, disclosed that the children were being given measles, rotavirus, polio and other vaccines.

“We are giving them measles vaccine, rotavirus; a vaccine that protects a child from diarrhoea. We also give them polio vaccine; it protects a child under five years from paralysis. Now we are in the outreach, we call the reached and unreached to embrace the free immunisation. Many people out of ignorance lost their children to disease that could have been prevented if they were immunised. Last week when we were going out for outreach at Ekporika, we met a child of five years that has not received even tuberculosis vaccine, which helps to control such disease. So the vaccine is free and safe,” she added.

On compliance, she said that after much sensitisation, mothers were now participating in the exercise. She, however, frowned at some faith-based organisations in the area that refused access to immunise their children on Sunday, April 27, 2025.

Expanding Outreach Across LGAs

THISDAY observed that the same immunisation campaign took place in Gokana, Khana, Obio/Akpor, and Ahoada East LGAs of the state.

The Local Immunisation Officer (LIO) for Eleme LGA, Mrs Rose Owate, told THISDAY that “The African Vaccination Week started on April 25th of this year and they gave Eleme five teams. We have done the flag-off and we have started the programme since the 25th and today (April 28th) is the fourth day.

“The programme is moving smoothly; people are coming out. They have been receiving the vaccines, there is no complain. We went round communities in the LGA to tell the people to come out, bring their babies, that immunisation is a key that can prevent diseases, which we have been doing. UNICEF is trying, they have been helping, they have been assisting, they have been providing logistics, they come out to do supportive supervision, so they are doing well,” she added.

WHO: Time to Close Immunisation Gaps

Earlier during the flag-off of the African Vaccination Week held at the Primary Health Care Centre, Rumuigbo in Obio/Akpor LGA, and in commemoration with World Vaccination Week, Acting WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, said the event renewed partners’ collective commitment to achieving equitable access to life-saving vaccines for every child in every community in Rivers State.

Ihekweazu noted that “Vaccines have saved an estimated 154 million lives over the past 50 years, reducing infant mortality by 40% and protecting people from more than 30 deadly diseases. In 2024, the global community celebrated 50 years of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation. This milestone was a reminder of the extraordinary progress made and the work that remains.”

She said that despite the advances, far too many people in Africa still lack access to essential vaccines, stressing that one in five children in Africa remain under-vaccinated. “In 2023 alone, 6.7 million children received no vaccines at all—so-called ‘zero-dose’ children. Measles outbreaks persist, while vaccine-derived poliovirus continues to pose a threat.”

Immunisation Agenda 2030: The Midpoint

The WHO Regional Director for Africa explained that this year also marks the midway point of Immunisation Agenda 2030 (IA2030), a global commitment to achieving equitable vaccine access by 2030, noting that now is the time to accelerate progress, expand coverage and close immunity gaps.

She added that WHO and its partners are working closely with countries to identify and reach zero-dose children, integrate immunisation into primary health care, and build stronger, more resilient health systems.

To sustain and build on this progress, she called on governments at all levels to increase domestic investment and secure sustainable immunisation financing; health systems to integrate vaccines into essential services and expand access, while urging communities to stand against misinformation and vaccine hesitancy.

Rivers State: Continuing the Momentum

On his part, Rivers State Immunisation Officer (SIO), Dr Joseph Urang, said every immunisation is free. He stated, “The successes of immunisation is what we are celebrating, that doesn’t mean we are going to stop immunisation. We are already moving on with the activities. All immunisation activities are going on but in the name of marking the African Vaccination Week, that’s why we selected five LGAs and WHO sponsored outreach teams and they have gone out to the field to vaccinate more children.

“We have not stopped vaccination activities. All vaccinations activities will go on. We have our fixed post, we have our outreach activities going on in all local government areas, but in the name of marking this activity, we selected five LGAs to showcase that this is one of the successes we are achieving.”

Targeting High-Risk LGAs

On the criteria used in selecting the five LGAs, Dr Urang said, “we looked at the vaccination preventable diseases occurrence, that’s what we used in these Local Governments that are not funded by WHO and we sorted out these five LGAs that have the highest occurrence of vaccine preventable diseases. What this means is that, there are places where these diseases are multiplying. We need to find a way to get to those places and get the children vaccinated.”

Rebuilding Trust After COVID-19

Rivers State Health Educator, Dr Babbo Diana, encouraged partners to continue collaborating to ensure that children in Rivers State are vaccinated. “We also try to encourage our mothers to not lose hope or courage in the fight towards immunising their children.

“We know that after COVID-19, we started finding a dwindling of the statistics of people taking immunisation. So, we saw that it was kind of a trust issue. The confidence in the system and trust in vaccinations per se and we saw the numbers dropping.

“This is like six years post-COVID-19 and we are still having mothers reluctant to bring out children for vaccination and we want to remind ourselves that we have won so far because we are immunising our children, and if we drop our oars now, we will start seeing all the illnesses coming back and we don’t want that to happen.”

On challenges, Dr Diana stated, “we are having non-compliances, we are having hesitancy towards vaccination, we are under-immunised, we are having no immunisation or unimmunised, we are having incomplete immunisation. So, we need to create the awareness once again, we need to bring that thing up once again and say this thing is good, this thing is safe, it’s effective and besides we are not charging money for it, it’s free.”

UNICEF Targets 12 States with Expanded Campaign

It would be recalled that during a two-day multi-zonal media dialogue to commemorate the 2025 World Immunisation Week (WIW) with the theme, “Immunisation For All Is Humanly Possible”, last week, the Chief of Field Office at UNICEF’s Enugu office, Mrs Juliet Chiluwe, revealed that an extensive immunisation exercise would be carried out across 12 targeted states of Abia, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Bayelsa, Delta, Cross River, Benue, Ebonyi, Enugu, Kogi, Imo and Rivers.

Chiluwe stated that in line with the objective of this year’s World Immunisation Week, “it is essential to underscore the continued relevance of this global observance,” adding that medical and health practitioners, as well as members of the media, are duty-bound to ensure the promotion of “the feasibility and necessity of protecting everyone, from newborns to the elderly, against vaccine-preventable diseases, through inclusive and equitable immunisation services.”

She urged the government and other UNICEF partners to continue strengthening and advancing the momentum of progress recorded over the years through meaningful budgetary provisions, to ensure that every child gets immunised with life-saving vaccines so that children can survive and reach their full potential in life.