Posted on: Thu 30-01-2025

Stakeholders in the health sector have called for collective action to tackle the country’s high measles and rubella burden. They emphasised the need to strengthen routine immunisation services to ensure an effective nationwide measles-rubella (MR) vaccine rollout.

Measles is a highly contagious viral disease and remains a major cause of death among young children globally, despite the availability of a safe and effective vaccine.

Rubella is a contagious viral infection that occurs in children and young adults. The virus is the leading vaccine-preventable cause of birth defects. Rubella infection in pregnant women may cause fetal death or congenital defects known as congenital rubella syndrome.

At a meeting organised by the Centre for Well-being and Integrated Nutrition Solutions (C-WINS), a public health physician with the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Dr Kenneth Adagba, stressed the need to tackle vaccine hesitancy through grassroots campaigns and targeted media outreach.

Adagba highlighted the importance of reducing out-of-pocket vaccine expenses to improve accessibility. “Measles anywhere is a threat everywhere,” he warned, emphasising the need to control outbreaks across the 36 States and the Federal Capital Territory. He said that the ministry is working with the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) to address the measles outbreak.

Also speaking, a renowned paediatrician, Dr Nihinlola Mabogunje, stressed the need to integrate immunisations into routine healthcare services and ensure access in hard-to-reach and conflict-affected areas.

Mabogunje said no child should die from measles and no child should be left unvaccinated. She expressed concern over low knowledge of what rubella is and the effects it has on mothers and unborn babies and called for total adherence to vaccination.

“Vaccine must be routinised. Mothers should go to the facilities and get their children vaccinated at the appropriate time,” she added. An epidemiologist from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr Lukman Ismaila, observed that Nigeria records over 10,000 measles cases yearly and called for improved vaccination coverage.

Ismaila advocated regional interventions and the involvement of traditional and religious leaders to promote vaccine acceptance.He noted that preventing outbreaks is not about vaccines; but collaboration across all sectors.

Ismaila stated that the best and most affordable way to prevent measles is to ensure that everybody is vaccinated. “What we are saying is to take the campaign to the community level and ensure that everyone is aware of what measles entails, and the importance of taking the vaccine.

“There are lots of interventions provided by the NCDC. One of such is to ensure that all public officials in the country, from the federal to local communities have the skill and capacity to respond to a measles outbreak.

“We are training and retraining public officials at the national, state and local government levels, to ensure that once the outbreak occurs in their communities, they can control it,” he said.

SOURCE: GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER

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