By Kate Henshaw
The heading is one of the popular sayings that  have been proven to be true, also:  a stitch in time saves nine. It is by far easier and cheaper in the long run to be proactive and prevent certain events from happening in our personal lives than trying to find a solution when the worst has occurred.

Take for instance, regular exercise; it is no use being a couch potato for the most part of your life and then suddenly, due to the doctor’s warning and ultimatum, you get a brain wave to lose weight. You will need to be extremely patient with your body which has exceeded its elastic limit and give it time to  get back into shape if it can, without the aid of the surgeon’s knife. There are no quick fixes.

Vaccines are one of the best and most cost effective public health interventions known to man. Childhood vaccinations protect children from a variety of serious or potentially fatal diseases including diphtheria, measles, polio, tetanus, meningitis, whooping cough.

If these diseases seem uncommon, it simply means vaccines are doing their job.

Unfortunately in Nigeria, many children who need life saving vaccines never get them. Every year, Nigeria loses more than one million children under the age of five years. Many of these deaths could have been prevented by vaccination from routine immunization. These preventable deaths impose a huge social and economic cost on families, communities and the nation. Vaccinating our children will not only protect their health and keep them alive, it will bring economic benefits and help build the Nigerian nation. Some parents have not exposed their children to any form of immunization. Must we continue business as usual? Health has to be given its pride of place because only a healthy populace can deliver on political promises. Politics and health have to work together.

It is on this premise that the first ever national vaccine summit was conceived and held for two days at the International Conference Center, Abuja from April 16 to 17, 2012. It was not time to agonize anymore but to put in place an agenda for sustainable policies and actions that will reduce child deaths. The summit brought together stakeholders from multiple sectors including health, education, finance, transportation and power. A high powered delegation which included the Secretary to the Federal Government of Nigeria, Senator Pius Anyim; the Minister of State for Health, Dr Muhammad Ali Pate, the Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Hajia Zainab Maina representing the First Lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria were present at the summit. The objectives of the summit was to sensitize high level political and business leaders that vaccines promote child survival, declare a call to action to reach all Nigerian children with routine immunization by the year 2015, in order to reduce child mortality and reach MDG4,to raise pledges and support for rotten immunization from Nigerian leaders across the political, business, traditional and religious  spectrum and to establish an action plan and accountability framework to follow-up pledges and execute the call to action.

The summit is vital and timely as child mortality is becoming unacceptable in Nigeria. Urgent attention must be paid to our health care system. The Minister of State for health has spoken on the need for us to develop in country strategic tools that will be able to build pillars of sustainability for us as a country to do things for ourselves. The Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency( NPHCDA), Dr Ado, said child mortality apart from the distress it caused had serious economic implications. A recent study showed that if 90percent coverage was achieved with immunization, in 10 years, it would bring in additional income of 17billion dollars to the nation’s coffers.

This awareness needs to be brought to the attention of those who are responsible for the allocation of funds meant for immunization. Communities need to increase advocacy for immunization at all levels. Challenges such as Socio-cultural bias, logistic problems, lack of human resources and inadequate cold chain systems need to be addressed.

Nelson Mandela once said that life or death for a young child too often depends on whether he or she is born in a country where vaccines are available. Nigeria needs to be that country that values the life of its children. Hopefully,  I pray the summit did not end up as another talk shop. It is incumbent on us all as citizens of Nigeria to protect our young and give them the future they will thrive in but there will be no future if their lives are cut off before it even has a chance to begin.