Mohammed Shosanya
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has hinted that it has vaccinated 30 million Nigerian children in the last five years.
Dr Geoffrey Njoku, the Communication Specialist, disclosed this at a two-day media interaction with media practitioners on the “New Country Programme 2023-2027 and Status of Implementation of the Child Rights Law (2003) in states.”
According to him,the number of vaccinated children is part of the organization’s country program result for 2018-2022.
The organisation, intends to achieve the plan using the four major components of child survival (Health, Polio, Nutrition, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) and HIV/AIDS), basic education, child protection and social policy and gender equality.
The plan has Universal Health Coverage (UHC), reduction of maternal neonatal mortality and rapid response to public health outbreaks as goals.
He explained that the vaccinations were carried out as part of integrated programs against life-threatening diseases.
He added: “Fifty eight million children were vaccinated against polio; the agency also achieved zero dose strategy in 100 local government areas to reach underserved children across 18 states.Twenty two million children also received two doses of Vitamin A in 2022.
“The organisation facilitated birth registration for 7.4 million children under the age of five.
2.8 million children living in conflict affected areas received psychosocial support”.
On education, he said the agency supported 1.5 million girls to enter schools using a new evidence-based approach, while five million children continued learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This,he said,was achieved using radio, television and home based materials.
He said:”The organisation said it planned to support 10 million children to access formal or non-formal education by 2027.
Many children in Nigeria were left behind in many areas.It also said that the nation had the world’s highest number of out-of-school children as an estimated 10.1 million primary age school children were not in school”.
He disclosed that in the new 2023-2027 programme for Nigeria, its vision is “to ensure the rights of every child in Nigeria especially the most excluded, to survive, thrive, learn, be protected and develop to his or her full potential.”
According to him: “By 2027, we want to have over one million additional children immunised (zero-dose), 15,000 additional community health workers trained, over 1,700 Primary Health Care facilities in 14 states meet PHC minimum standards.
“We also want to have state level and national capacities built to prepare and respond to public health emergencies.On nutrition, we project that we would have 50 million children aged six to 59 months receive Vitamin A twice a year.
“Also, 12.5 million women (50 per cent of pregnant women) receive more than 90 iron-folic acid tablets or micronutrient supplements in 19 states.”
