Vaccines: NSSF, NHW Call for Improved Primary Healthcare Infrastructure

The Nigeria Solidarity Support Fund (NSSF) and the Nigeria Health Watch (NHW) have called for improved primary healthcare to expand access to vaccines in the country.

The organisations made the call at the webinar series on the theme, “Expanding Access to Vaccines in Nigeria: Building Community Confidence in Vaccines”.

The vice-chairman of NSSF, Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, emphasised the importance of improving primary healthcare infrastructure to achieve better vaccine programmes.

“If the primary health infrastructure exists at the level we want it to, then the cost of vaccines and its administration across the country and demographics will reduce.”

At the webinar with 234 attendees, the GM/CEO of NSSF, Dr Fejiro Chinye-Nwoko, intimated attendees on the theme of the webinar series.

She said the webinar series was necessary to raise awareness of the poor immunisation coverage in Nigeria and the increased number of zero-dose children.

Citing the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), there are 3.1 million zero-dosed children in Nigeria.

“The COVID-19 pandemic greatly influenced this outcome,” says Chinye-Nwoko.

“NSSF looks to support the Nigerian government in its vaccination plans. We will bring together private and public sector partnerships to bridge the gaps in funding and technical expertise in health sector leadership and immunisation programmes.”

On her part, the CEO of BVGH, Jennifer Dent, said, “One key challenge to implement and sustain vaccination is finding the right partners because it would require local priorities to drive them.”

She harped on the need to build relationships, test ideas through pilots, and work with local stakeholders, including grassroots, state, and national level stakeholders.

The Director of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Dr Caroline Jehu-Appiah, said Nigeria shared insights on how immunisation is failing in the country, despite being cost-effective.

Some of the key challenges listed include the tight fiscal space, the increasing cost of vaccines, and poor population census.

Others are poor coverage of outbreaks, brain drain in the health sector, weak immunisation demand, unutilised or poor data quality.

The Director of Statistics of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr Abdullahi Garba, claimed that instability in government, amongst others, was a reason for slow or non-existent vaccine production.

He noted that vaccine manufacturing was expensive and complex locally.

Garba, however, noted that the government’s partnerships with countries like India and Indonesia to support vaccine manufacturing would help bring down costs.

For the Senior Programme Officer (SPO) Vaccine Delivery in Nigeria Country Office of BMGF, Yusuf Yusufari, there is a need for an end-to-end overview —from manufacturer to the last man.

He also commended the NPHCDA immunisation programme that has reduced the vaccine stock and improved vaccine delivery in some states.

The event also brought together forward-thinking leaders in the health sector as speakers and panellists.

They included policy experts, private sector leaders, funders, and non-governmental and government organisations.

A common theme among the speakers was the need for and the use of quality data in expanding vaccination campaigns nationwide.