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UNICEF/UN028224/Esiebo In Muna Garage IDP Camp, Borno State, Nigeria, a UNICEF
health worker uses a pen to mark the thumb of Ajeda, 6 months, who has just
been vaccinated against polio Photo: unicef.org.hk
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In the northeast region of
the country, where these camps are located, 80% of Nigerian children have not
been vaccinated.
It
is a hot Saturday, Modu Sheriff is seated under a tree to shield him from the
rays of the blistering sun in Borno state, Nigeria.
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| Children at IDP camp at Galtimari primary school, three kilometres away from the main camp, have not been vaccinated |
He
immediately volunteers to be interviewed as soon he is asked if his kids have
been immunized. It is a tale of need he desperately wants to share. “My kids
have never been vaccinated,” he says in Hausa—one of the languages spoken in Nigeria— “Most of the children here
have not been vaccinated”.
Modu
is originally from Konduga, Borno state, but the Boko Haram insurgency that
ravished the state has left him internally displaced.
Together
with his two wives and 10 children—the youngest being three months old and the oldest, 15—they camp in one of the host
communities, Galtimari, which is at least three kilometres from the main camp
of the internally displaced persons (and close to Giwa Barracks, the barracks
for the army).
According
to the National Immunization Coverage Survey (NICS), conducted by the National Primary
Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), 77% of Nigerian children have not
been fully immunized. In the north east, where Borno is situated, the number
rises to 80%. This is due to two main reasons: far away immunization
centres and unnoticed visiting of WHO people to the displaced people camps;
which draw an even difficult situation for many families who are already
struggling.
“There
are no nearby outposts where I can take my kids to vaccinated. I would take my children to vaccination centres if I could afford to,” Modu says.
Chika Offor, executive director of Vaccines Network NGO, explains that if
people do not have money and the distance from their abodes to immunization
centres are far, the chances of getting immunized diminishes.
At
vaccination centres, caregivers are given cards to help track children’s immunization. But
only one in three children in Nigeria have a vaccine card, the NICS report
reveals. The report also shows that states with the lowest number of immunization
cards also have the lowest immunization coverage.
The struggle to get medical
assistance at the camp
It
is a similar story for Ali Sheriff who is originally from Bama, Borno state. He
now camps at Galtimari primary school, which is also far away from the main
camp. Ali says it is almost impossible to get his children immunized even
though he wants to. “The WHO people go to the main camp to give the children
vaccines but they don’t tell us when they are coming. When we hear, it is often
too late. We hurriedly take our kids there, but they would have gone.” Ali
laments, this describing it as painful and a wasted effort.
Ali’s
wife, who prefers not to be identified, says she knows that vaccines are life
saving. She says she wants to her children vaccinated but it is just impossible
to get her kids to the centre. “Three months after I had my second child, I
took the child to the hospital to take BCG and polio. I could not continue
because the hospital is very far and before we get to the camp when the
vaccinators come, they would have gone”.
She
had two of her kids in the camp. “There was no doctor to help me. It was a
terrible struggle because I even had eclampsia”—a pregnancy complication characterized
by convulsions followed by coma—, says Ali’s wife. Although, this story is
different with her eldest kid, nine years old, who was born before Boko Haram
crisis. He was immunized, Ali says.
“I
want the World Health people to come closer to us. Before they used to have
small centres where we could go to get vaccines, but they do not exist any
longer,” Ali’s wife says. “If they can create small centres that are close to
us, we will take our kids there to get their vaccines”.
Nigeria’s
National Primary Health Care Development Agency, the main agency responsible
for immunization programmes, did not respond to enquiries regarding the
distribution of vaccines despite several attempts to reach them. For now, the
people in Galtimari camp residents stay unvaccinated, keeping faith that the
next outbreak does not occur in their community. This, unfortunately, is more
than keeping faith. There is an outbreak of cholera in the state that is fast
gaining traction because of poor infrastructure, lack of clean water and
overcrowding. At the last count, there were 2,627 cases of cholera with 48 deaths.
This investigation is a partnership with the African Network of Centers for Investigative Reporting, as part of the Medicamentalia Vaccines project.
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