The National President, Paediatrics Association of Nigeria (PAN), Dr Dorothy Esangbedo, has said that Nigeria must urgently double its routine immunization status, in order to attract more international support and enhance child care.

Esangbedo disclosed this in an interview in Johannesburg at the end of the 26th International Paediatrics Association (IPA) Congress. The paediatrician stated that the immunisation rate in Nigeria at present had fallen way below what is acceptable universally and was in dire need of improvement.

"We are running at below 49 percent and for us to be eligible for donations or contribution from the international community such as the Global Alliance for Vaccine Initiative, it is important that we improve the routine immunisation status of our country. "We need to scale it up almost twice of where we are now and that is a major challenge. It is almost a daunting challenge because we need to do it quickly.

"This is imperative to improve on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) especially goal four, but it is something that can be done. If we do it, we would actually improve the chances of reaching the MDGs goal four," she said. The MDG goal four aims to reduce, by two-thirds, the under- five mortality rate by 2015.

She said with just five years away from the target, there was need to apply initiatives and strategies that would be effective, describing immunisation as the biggest gift that can be given to mankind. (NAN)

"It is the biggest of whatever kind of innovation that human beings have done so far, and it is the children's right to have immunisation so that is what I think the country should concentrate on," she said. Esangbedo stressed the need to return routine immunisation schedules for the children and broaden its content.

The Paediatrician said it was regrettable that deaths still occur from vaccine preventable diseases in the Nigeria, which include pneumonia, diarrhea and malaria. She regretted that some important vaccines for child care are at present not in the schedule for the country due to the nation's ineligibility.

Esangbedo listed the Pneumococal vaccine 13, haemophilus influenzae B Vaccine and Rotavirus vaccine, which is against the Rotavirus that causes about 50 per cent of diarrhea of children, as missing in the present schedules. "We believe the government, however, means well and perhaps all of us, both technocrats and policy makers need to work more closely to ensure that the children get what is right," she stressed.

Esangbedo also tasked the government to address the issue of malnutrition which is a contributory cause of at least 60 per cent of deaths of children in Nigeria. "There is a lot the country can do to improve the nutritional status of children, and I think there is a lot we can do in terms of improving our food security and ensuring that some of the things which were available in the past in the country but are which no more, are restored.

"Recently we were talking about the fact that groundnut pyramids used to be in the up North, and groundnut is a good source of Vitamin A, for children and these are some of the things that the country should look at returning," she said.

Esangbedo stated that the International Paediatrician Association Congress held in Johannesburg provided a forum to learn from strategies that have worked in other countries to improve the health indices of their children .

"As you know, we contribute about 10 per cent to the global child health problems so learning from other populations on how they have been able to improve the child health indices is a worthy cause," she said.

NAN