Delegations from Guinea and South Sudan are in Nigeria to learn from the country’s vaccination programme. The focus of the learning is on pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) and rotavirus vaccine for childhood immunisation.
The four-day peer learning and capacity-building workshop, titled ‘Promoting Rotavirus Vaccine and PCV for Enhanced Childhood Immunisation and Safety, is facilitated by the Vaccine Network for Disease Control (VNDC) in Abuja.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that 215,000 children die annually from rotavirus-associated diarrheal diseases, with the majority of these deaths occurring in low-income countries like Guinea, Chad, Somalia, and South Sudan. The introduction of PCV and the rotavirus vaccine is seen as a critical intervention to reduce child mortality from pneumonia and rotavirus, two of the leading causes of preventable deaths in children.
The peer learning programme aims to foster knowledge sharing and collaboration with Nigeria, Guinea, and South Sudan. Nigeria’s vaccine programme is being used as a model to help these nations introduce and scale up PCV and rotavirus vaccines in their national immunisation schedules.
According to VNDC, Nigeria has successfully introduced both PCV and the rotavirus vaccine into its national immunisation schedule. The CSOs from these countries will collaborate with their Nigerian counterparts to develop comprehensive strategies for vaccine introduction, advocacy, and scale-up, drawing on Nigeria’s challenges and successes.
Abdoulaye Djenab Camara, the CEO of Réseau Afrique Jeunesse de Guinée (RAJ-GUI) and the programme manager of RASGI, the African Youth Network of Guinea highlighted that meningitis and diarrhoea are major causes of child mortality in Guinea, despite the availability of highly effective vaccines. He decried that Guinea is one of the few countries not yet included in the PCV and rotavirus vaccines in its routine immunisation schedule.
He said he was currently in Nigeria with other NGOs and partner organisations from Guinea to engage with Nigerian partners to develop advocacy strategies for introducing the PCV and rotavirus vaccines in Guinea.
The goal of their advocacy efforts is to push for the introduction of these vaccines in Guinea. Camara said the delegation also aims to learn from the experiences of their Nigerian partners and organise advocacy sessions and meetings with key stakeholders in Guinea, including health and government authorities, to promote the integration of these important vaccines into the country’s healthcare system.
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Chika Offor, CEO of VNDC, emphasised the significance of this partnership, stating, “Our sister countries, Guinea and South Sudan, are looking to introduce the rotavirus and PCV vaccines. Nigeria has successfully done this, and we are here to share how it was achieved, the strategies that worked, and the role CSOs can play in supporting government efforts.”
Offor further explained that the workshop will examine the challenges Nigeria faced during its vaccine roll-out, as well as the successes so that Guinea and South Sudan can build on these achievements and avoid the pitfalls Nigeria encountered.
“Guinea and South Sudan have not formally introduced the rotavirus vaccine but Nigeria has. And because we have done it successfully, we’re going to look at the challenges that Nigeria faced when we introduced those two vaccines and vaccines in general.
“We’re going to also look at the successes that we’ve had, build on those successes, stop doing the things that we didn’t do well so that by the time Guinea and South Sudan are doing that, they can work on our successes and do away with things that are not successful”, she said.
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