The United Nations Children’s Fund, or UNICEF, is asking Nigeria’s government to try harder to make sure all kids in Nigeria get the polio vaccine.
Rahama Farah, who is in charge of the UNICEF office in Kano, talked about this on World Polio Day.
He explained that they want everyone to know how important it is for kids to get their shots because shots protect kids from getting sick. Getting these shots is really cheap but very powerful in keeping children, especially those under 5 years old, safe from diseases.
Even though things are getting better and more kids are getting their shots, Nigeria is having a tough time making sure all children get vaccinated.
For example, in states like Kano, Jigawa, and Katsina, over half a million children have never had any vaccine shots at all. Here are the numbers: Kano has 280,281 kids, Katsina has 171,491 kids, and Jigawa has 104,978 kids without shots.
In total, all over Nigeria, there are about two million children who have never gotten any vaccine shots. This is bad because these kids are really likely to catch illnesses, like polio.
To fix this, everyone has to work together, including the government, community leaders, religious leaders, doctors, famous people, actors, and reporters. We all need to do our part to protect these kids from getting sick.
Farah also mentioned that it’s important to have enough money to help out with health services, especially when they are giving polio vaccines.
He asked people in charge of local areas to take action and help with giving shots. They should also check on how the vaccination effort is going and talk about it in meetings to make sure every child in their area gets their shots.