Last week, the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar 111, brought to the fore an issue of great concern affecting children, especially those in northern Nigeria. The Sultan expressed concern over what he called the inability of northern children to access immunisation due to insecurity and other factors.

The Sultan, who spoke in Kaduna, during a meeting with traditional leaders and development partners, and organised by the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), in collaboration with the Sultan Foundation for Peace and Development, maintained that there was an urgent need to address the situation.

He said the meeting was “to discuss with traditional leaders ways to reach out to totally inaccessible and displaced communities of Kaduna, Niger and Katsina states to ensure that every child in the North is immunised because it is one of our duties as traditional leaders.”

Also speaking, the Emir of Argungu, Alhaji Sama’ila Muhammad Mere, who is the chairman of the Northern Traditional Leaders Committee (NTLC) on Primary Health Care, said the meeting was based on a report received by the first quarter NTLC review meeting from Zamfara.

According to him, “In his report to the meeting, the Zamfara State NTLC representative stated that the devastating security situation in the state has made access to many communities and children difficult or impossible, creating a risk of an outbreak of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases.”

About a month ago, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said there were over 600,000 children in three North West states – Kano, Jigawa, and Katsina- that are yet to be vaccinated against childhood killer diseases.

It further noted that the poor vaccine intake put the children at risk of killer diseases and even death.

Due to insecurity, people are driven from their villages, and sometimes, parents even lose documents in the process, which prevents them from following up on immunisation for the children/wards. Also, some victims of attacks find themselves in Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps, which do not have health facilities, making it difficult for them to get routine immunisation. There is a huge danger in this development because it is one thing to be dealing with insecurity, but to add a future health crisis makes the matter worse.

Already, there are reports that polio returned to some communities due to a lack of vaccination. A WHO report states that Nigeria reported 1,027 cases of vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 in 2021, due to what it called suboptimal population immunity. And according to the report, the burden was highest in the northern region. This was after the country was certified polio-free in 2020.

And lately, the media has been awash with reports on the growing number of cases of diphtheria, which health experts say is due to the lack of routine immunisation occasioned by insecurity in some communities. There are also reports of immunisation officers killed by criminals in the course of carrying out their duties.

We commend the Sultan for bringing attention to this very critical issue which, if not addressed, is a time bomb waiting to explode in the future. We cannot take our eyes off the ball. While we fight insecurity, we must ensure that other issues such as the health of citizens are not neglected.

We call for increased efforts to tackle insecurity across the country, especially in northern Nigeria, which is the worst hit, so that all displaced persons can return to their homes and continue their normal activities, which include taking their children to the hospitals when necessary for immunisation. We also call on the security personnel to provide extra protection to health personnel to enable them to go to communities and immunise children who should be vaccinated. State governments should take this issue very seriously as it is well known that only healthy people can help to develop a state or nation. These children are the future of the country and their health cannot be toyed with. The governments must make extra efforts to ensure that all those who should be vaccinated are attended to. They cannot continue to wait for donor agencies such as the World Health Organisation (WHO) and others to do this. They should make sure that health personnel visit all communities and Internally Displaced Persons amps and attend to all children. Already, we see health personnel going to religious places to carry out vaccination, and we hope that they continue. Arrangements can also be made for persons to gather at relatively safe places, including palaces for immunisation. There should be sustained efforts in the campaigns to sensitise parents on the need to present their children/ wards for vaccination.

The fight against insecurity must go side-by-side with the protection of the social life of the people. We cannot abandon one for another. The right of every displaced person, including health, must be protected and all efforts must be made to achieve that. We cannot afford to wait for security to return a hundred per cent to communities before children in those areas can be vaccinated as that will amount to creating another problem. All stakeholders must work towards achieving this goal.

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