Childhood vaccination has been implemented at COVID-19 vaccination sites for children aged 0-23 months by the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA).
This is to ensure that, in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, avoidable children diseases are not overlooked.
Dr Faisal Shuaib, the NPHCDA’s Executive Director, revealed this at the National COVID-19 vaccinations weekly briefing on Tuesday in Abuja.
According to the Nigerian News Agency (NAN), this was part of the agency’s first meeting for 2022, which was held to provide an update on the country’s COVID-19 immunization procedure.
According to him, the federal government’s goal to include childhood immunisation in its ongoing COVID-19 campaign train includes the inclusion of childhood immunisation.
“In this phase of COVID-19 mass vaccination, the campaign would be integrated with childhood immunization and other primary health care services.
“What this simply means is that alongside the COVID-19 vaccines, childhood vaccines will also be available at COVID-19 vaccination centres.
“Consequently, parents or guardians with children aged zero to 23 months are urged to take them along to the vaccination sites,” he said.
Shuaib said the holiday season coincided with a spike in the number of COVID-19 cases, and urged Nigerians to take advantage of the ongoing COVID-19 vaccination campaign across the country.
Several unvaccinated people were traveling from cities to rural areas and back, according to the NPHCDA’s director.
“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,” he said.
He went on to say that the appearance of these variants was due to the fact that a huge section of the eligible population had not yet been vaccinated.
This, he claims, allows the virus to evolve 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.
Meanwhile, the UNICEF Nigeria Representative, Dr. Peter Hawkins, said that the Nigerian government spent 298 million dollars for the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, which is estimated to be 30 million doses in total.
Hawkins said that this was a promise, and that the money would be drawn down as it became available and as it was needed.
“Nigeria so far, but the actual figure as received was 51,014,140 doses. There’s 10 million that is being stored ready to come into Nigeria,” he said.
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