By Joseph Erunke

ABUJA- THE federal government has integrated COVID-19 mass vaccination campaign with childhood immunization and other primary health care services.

The Executive Director, National Primary Health Care Development Agency, NPHCDA, Dr Faisal Shuaib, who disclosed this yesterday, while providing an update on the progress of COVID-19 vaccination in the country, said with the development, childhood vaccines will also be available at COVID-19 vaccination sites.

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“We would also like to inform the general public that in this phase of COVID-19 mass vaccination we plan to integrate the campaign with childhood immunization 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,” Shuaib said.

To this end,he said:”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,”he explained.

“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 COVID-19 and childhood vaccine-preventable diseases.

“We call on Nigerians to avail themselves of the opportunity in the on-going mass vaccination exercise to get vaccinated against COVID-19,” he added.

The NPHCDA’s boss,who noted that in Nigeria, during yuletide, several unvaccinated individuals migrated from the cities to the rural areas and back to the cities,regretted that the development saw a surge in the spread of the pandemic.

“Globally, we saw the emergence of new variants such as IHU variant in France which is said to have 46 mutations, Deltacron in Cyprus and the Omicron variant still being highly infectious with a BA.2 subvariant rapidly spreading.

“More of our citizens were coming down with the infection. Luckily for our vaccinated population, those who came down with the COVID-19 infection had mild symptoms which they managed at home due to the immunity the vaccination provided them.

“If they were not vaccinated, we cannot predict how these cases would have turned out. Vaccination prevents you from severe disease, hospitalization and death.

“The reason for the emergence of these variants, is because there is still a large proportion of the eligible population who have not yet been vaccinated and this has given the virus time to mutate and fight back.

” It is important that we protect ourselves and our loved ones by getting the jab. Our vaccination exercise was expanded to enable all eligible persons to have easier access. All vaccination sites are open to eligible persons, 18 years and above for first, second and booster doses. We call on Nigerians to avail themselves of this opportunity in the ongoing mass vaccination exercise to get vaccinated against COVID-19,” he said.

He said a total of 14,093,873 eligible persons have so far received the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine in Nigeria while 5,252,406 eligible Nigerians have been fully vaccinated. The figure, he explained, was as at Tuesday, January 25th 2022.

He, however, said,”As one would expect, these results are not evenly distributed across the states of the federation”, adding:”Our deep dive into state performances reveals that Nasarawa, Jigawa, FCT, Ogun, and Kwara have remained the top 5 performing states on COVID-19 vaccine uptake.”

” It is noteworthy to mention that Jigawa and Lagos have each vaccinated about a 1.5million eligible Nigerians with the first dose, while FCT, Nasarawa, Lagos, and Delta are leading on second dose administration with more than 10% 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,” he said.

He proffered recommendations to states on how to ramp up Covid-19 and childhood vaccinations thus:”Governor should convene a meeting of local government area chairmen, traditional, political, religious leaders and the health team.

“He should charge them with the responsibility of ensuring that the populace within their constituencies is duly vaccinated; the governor should charge the LGA chairmen and health teams to develop a daily, weekly and monthly Covid-19 and childhood vaccination targets based on the total eligible populations;the governor can meet with the LGA Chairmen and health teams on a weekly basis, to review the results of the campaigns and confirm if these targets are being met. This can also be an agenda on the weekly State executive council meetings.”

According to him, the governor can apply accountability mechanisms to the vaccination process by publically rewarding LGA teams that perform the highest and sanctions teams that do not meet the minimum requirements despite the supports.”

“This can be done in a fortnightly ceremony where the Governor shakes the best performers and issue certificates or plaques of excellence,” he added.

While noting that there were challenges of undue vaccine hesitancy in the country, he said:”We strongly believe that a more committed approach to implementing mass vaccination will lead to improved vaccine uptake. “

“This is why our current vaccination phase emphasizes state supervision support to ramp up vaccine uptake especially in low-performing states,” he stressed.

Shuaib expressed happiness that till date, Nigeria has not recorded any death arising from COVID-19 vaccination.

“This should further serve to convince everyone that COVID-19 vaccines are safe. Let me, therefore, remind all Nigerians, that the second and booster doses are critical to achieving high protection against the virus especially as it keeps mutating,” he said.

The NPHCDA’s boss recalled that “Nigeria introduced booster dose of COVID-19 vaccine on the 10th of December 2021, following the recommendation by WHO for people who have received two doses of AstraZeneca, Moderna, Pfizer Bio-N-Tech or one dose of Johnson & Johnson vaccines.”

According to him,” So far, 416,980 Nigerians have received their booster dose.”

” Again, this is a clear indication that many more Nigerians are determined to achieve maximum protection against COVID-19,” he said.

He reminded Nigerians that “our Joint Task Force on COVID-19 vaccine monitoring and accountability is still very active and vigilant.”

The Federal Government is on alert for any report of card vending and other unlawful activities on COVID-19 vaccination. Therefore, we urge everyone to remain law-abiding and compliant with recommended safety measures on COVID-19,” he said.