When the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says anything about the health of children, it ought to be taken seriously. It has all the statistics and is the custodian of what must be done to save their lives.
The world body has raised alarm about the number of unvaccinated children in Nigeria, standing at 2.2 million today. This is frightening as vaccination is known to have cut drastically the figures of children who have succumbed to diseases known to snatch children, especially those under the age of five years.
A number of factors have stood in the way of children benefitting from vaccines, even when international bodies and friendly countries make them freely available. In parts of the country, some vaccines were rejected as a result of suspicion that the West was out to cause infertility and spread Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).
Despite it receiving the support of local and national health authorities, the traditional and religious leaders stood against the people embracing the polio vaccine.
It was therefore a setback for Nigeria’s plan to eradicate the paralysing disease.
Nigeria also ought to step up plans to produce vaccines locally. Many of our universities offer pharmacy and medicine up to doctorate level, yet, almost all vaccines are imported. The 2019/2020 COVID pandemic reminded us that Nigeria once produced its vaccines locally and could start again. Our children represent the future of the country and should be given priority attention in their most vulnerable years.
Those laboratories like the Redeemer University’s that have shown some prospect should be supported if only to reduce the suspicion surrounding the vaccines. Government could go further by encouraging researchers in the North to pay attention to such areas.
One other area of concern is protecting children from infant mortality induced by mosquito bites. While massive distribution of treated mosquito nets has been known to cut malaria among infants by 70 per cent, about 55 per cent of mothers are yet to obtain and use them.
This is a call on governments at all levels to ensure that the nets are made available through primary health care centres and schools.
While apex predators such as lions, bears, leopards, crocodiles and pythons are so feared by man, the female anopheles mosquito accounts for most deaths by animals.
The government has a duty to produce these innocent children whose immunity has not yet matured to ward off the effect of the plasmodium parasites that cause malaria.
The duty of enhancing social hygiene is for all Nigerians with the government, especially at the local level leading the way. It is too important a task to be left for the governments only. Traditional and religious leaders, schools and other agencies of socialisation should be mobilised for this all-important task.
In the pre-independence and immediate post-independence era, health officials were seen moving about to ensure that the environment was kept clean in the interest of all. We need to revisit this if we are to keep mosquitoes away.
As at 2025, 45 countries had been certified malaria-free by the World Health Organization (WHO). In Africa, they include Algeria, Cape Verde, Seychelles, Mauritius, Egypt and Morocco.
Unfortunately, Nigeria is not anyway close to being so certified. A timeline should be set and all hands enlisted on deck.
Apart from the man-hours lost to the disease, even when adults are held down by malaria, the infants are also impacted. If other African countries could conquer malaria, there is no reason why Nigeria couldn’t.
Estimates by global bodies indicate that about N11 billion is lost annually to the disease. This is money that could have been spent to boost social services and infrastructure in a country that is in dire need of them.
As we move towards the end of the third decade of the twenty- first century, Nigerian leaders should come up with concrete plans to free the children from mosquitoe bites.