Nigeria`s effort to come to terms with the fate of its children remains ongoing. However, over the years, it has become increasingly clear that crucial measures would have to be taken if the children are to enjoy security and protection, not just from the many armed and unarmed criminals who invest in creating devastatingly destabilizing insecurity but also from the immediate challenges they face to their health and well-being.
Childhood, especially the earliest times, are a time of intriguing vulnerability for children. Because at that point in their lives, many children are still trying to adjust to the reality of leaving their mother`s wombs for a new and often challenging experience in the world; they are especially vulnerable to disease and other health challenges. At this point in their lives, many children are still trying, albeit desperately, to take in the multiple changes at different levels, they have to put up with familiar but staggering odds as their often tender and fragile bodies race against the clock to adjust their immunity to withstand new shocks and confront new challenges.
And as infant mortality has become a troubling challenge over the years, efforts have to be racked up in a bid to bring it down.
Available statistics are at once daunting and haunting. They show that as of 2022, the mortality rate of infants who are less than one is about 56.68, meaning that there were about 56 deaths of children under the age of one year per 1,000 live births.
According to the World Health Organization, Immunization is a global health and development success story, saving millions of lives every year. Vaccines reduce risks of getting a disease by working with the body`s natural defenses to build protection.
While immunization has been key in saving millions of lives every year, as a critical public health intervention, it has plateaued over the last decade. With the COVID-19 pandemic and associated disruptions in training health systems, 25 million children missed out on vaccination in 2021, 5.9 million more than in 2019, and the highest number since 2009.
Given their susceptibility to disease, students are expected to be immunized against Haemophilus influenza type b(Hib) which causes meningitis and pneumonia, Hepatitis B, Human Papillomavirus, Meningitis A, Measles, Mumps, pneumococcal diseases, Polio, Rotaviruses, Rubella, Tetanus, Yellow Fever, among others.
In Nigeria, immunization coverage continues to be low. Nigeria has long been committed to the goals of the Global Vaccine Action Plan, GVAP, which was to ensure that at least 90 per cent of children under the age of five are immunized with all the relevant and available vaccines to put an end or reduce to the barest minimum child killer diseases.
However, progress has continued to be frustratingly slow. According to the 2021 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) and the National Immunization Coverage Survey (NICS) jointly released by the Nigerian government, the United Nations Children`s Fund, (UNICEF) in partnership with others, only 57 per cent of Nigerian children have been immunized in the last eight years.
The task which demands urgent attention is one which is capable of saving the lives of millions of children every year thereby saving the country an incalculable amount of money and pain.
This has to be the goal and if it is to merit comprehensive and critical attention, it must be seen as one which will bring boundless benefits to the country while saving the lives of precious children.
Kene Obiezu, @kenobiezu
