Millions of children, especially in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, are at risk of not being vaccinated against polio and measles due to covid-19, warned UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO) today.
“It is essential to face the global covid-19 pandemic. However, other deadly diseases, “such as polio and measles,” also threaten the lives of millions of children in some of the poorest parts of the world, “warned the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and WHO, through a joint statement issued today in Abuja, the Nigerian capital.
In recent years, there has been “a global resurgence of measles, with epidemics underway in all regions of the world”. Gaps in immunization coverage were further exacerbated in 2020 by covid-19 ″, according to UNICEF and WHO, who call for “urgent action” by donors and policy makers worldwide.
The situation in Nigeria, with a population of almost 200 million, is worrying: although the country was certified free of wild polio in August 2020, “it remains exposed to the risk of outbreaks of polio and measles,” according to the two organizations.
Only 54% of children in Nigeria, for example, received the first dose of measles vaccine, according to 2018 data.
On Monday, Nigerian authorities announced a sudden spike in cases and deaths from yellow fever, a deadly disease, but for which a vaccine exists, in two southern regions. In the neighboring region of Benue, at least 17 people have died in the last few days of a disease still unknown, local media reported today.
The country has so far been relatively spared by the new coronavirus pandemic, which officially killed 1,154 people in more than 64,000 registered cases, but the number of tests is largely insufficient.
