The federal government through the Ministry of Health and the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, NPHCDA, has introduced the Rotavirus vaccine for routine Immunisation schedule to prevent over 110,000 deaths in children under the age of five-years in the next 10-years in Nigeria.
It was learnt that Rotavirus is a highly contagious virus that causes severe diarrhoea disease amongst infants and children all over the world. It was also gathered that Rotavirus is the most frequent cause of severe diarrhoea in children, accounting for about 215, 000 deaths of the global 525,000 children under-5-years.
It was estimated that diarrhoea disease caused by Rotavirus results on 25 million outpatient visits and 2 million admissions per year. Rota vaccine has been proved to prevent diarrhoea disease caused by Rotavirus.
The Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire at the flag-off on Tuesday, in Abuja, said the vaccine introduced in the EPI programme was of great importance because it was expected to directly prevent over 110,000 death in children under five-years in the next 10-years.
Ehanire who was represented by the Director of Public Health, Dr Alex Okoh, further disclosed that the government of Nigeria with the support of donors and partners, especially GAVI has spent huge amounts to fulfil routine immunisation vaccines for Nigeria’s children, adding that this was because improving the health of Nigerian children remains a priority in the health sector.
He said, “We, therefore, ask parents and caregivers to leverage this privilege to enable their children to be vaccinated against all vaccine-preventable diseases.
“Also for those who are PHC leaders at the sub-national level, and all healthcare workers across 40,000 PHC facilities for doggedness in ensuring that no Nigerian child was left behind in accessing potent vaccines and other services.”
In his remark, the executive director of the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency, NPHCDA, Dr Faisal Shuaibu explained that the introduction of the Rotavirus vaccine was a big investment due to its substantial economic impact and the number of lives that the country is going to save from it.
Shuaibu further said it was projected that while reducing the associated morbidity and mortality from Rotavirus infections, the rotavirus vaccine introduction has the potential to prevent over 110,000 deaths over a 10-year period.
According to him, “the vaccine is going to be given orally and will be administered concurrently with the existing Routine Immunization, RI, vaccines at 6 weeks, 10 weeks and 14 weeks respectively.”
He also said the launch was coinciding with the flag off of the African Vaccination Week, which is a weeklong affair that improves access to basic Primary Health Care Services, routine immunisation, COVID-19 vaccination, deworming, Vitamin A supplementation, medical outreach services to the teaming rural populations.
Also speaking, Country Representative of the World Health Organization, WHO, Dr Walter Kazadi Molumbo pointed out that the introduction of the Rotavirus Vaccine provides the opportunity to reduce the number of children dying every day from diarrhoea disease caused by Rotavirus.
Molumbo also noted that the public health impact of Rotavirus vaccine introduction has been demonstrated in several countries with as much as 50% of deaths from diarrhoea diseases prevented.
“The introduction should be part of a comprehensive strategy to control diarrhoea diseases with the scaling up of both preventive and treatment packages, Nigeria, being one of the four countries that harbour approximately half the global burden stands to have enormous gains from the economic impact of this introduction.
“Immunisation remains the most cost-effective public health intervention. Unfortunately, the benefits of immunisation are unevenly shared. The immunisation agenda 2030 and the GAVI 5.0 strategy seek to address this gap by “Leaving no one behind with immunisation.”
A 31-year-old mother of three, Sarah Obiye Albert, who is currently nursing a 6-week-old baby expressed joy for the introduction of the rotavirus vaccine as she said she has paid nothing less than N5000 for a dose when she was nursing her other two children.
She appreciated the effort of the government to bring the vaccine to mothers for free and assured that she will encourage other mothers around her to vaccinate their children.