Vice President Kashim Shettima says the federal government
will put structures in place to undo Nigeria’s poor immunisation rate.
Shettima spoke on Thursday at a parley with Aliko Dangote,
chairman of the Dangote group, Bill Gates, co-founder of the Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation, and members of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) at the
Presidential Villa, Abuja.
He said the variant polio virus has declined in Nigeria by
84 percent from 2021 to fewer than 200 cases in 2022.
He said Nigeria’s three-dose pentavalent vaccine coverage
also improved from 33 percent in 2016 to 57 percent in 2021, commending the
states that have achieved high-category immunization coverage.
“The federal
government and our respective state governments are going to put in place, a
transparent process and structure to undo the reality of the country as one
with one of the highest proportions of non-immunized infants in the world, over
the last decade,” he said.
“The federal government is committed to eradicating variant
poliovirus by the end of the year, ensuring that every Nigerian child is
covered in the routine immunisation campaigns.”
On the production of vaccines in the country, the vice
president assured that “we are going to work together to ensure that these
vaccines are made available even to zero-dose children, of which ours, at two
million, are the highest in the world after India”.
Also speaking, Dangote said he and Gates have been
partnering with the federal and state governments for several years, supporting
the efforts in eradicating polio and improving routine immunisation, nutrition
and primary healthcare in the country.
“We genuinely believe that the national economic council and the decisions that you will make over the next four years will determine whether Nigeria has sound economic growth, keep its citizens happy and achieves the sustainable development goals,” Dangote said.
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