Groundbreaking Nigeria Summit Results In Major Commitment To Reduce Child Deaths

    

Dramatic reduction in child mortality the goal of aggressive push to expand vaccine access in country with second-most child deaths worldwide

ABUJA, Nigeria, Apr 20, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Nigeria's top government officials, civil society leaders and leaders of private industry resolved today to join forces to expand vaccine access nationwide, a major step in the fight to reduce child mortality in a country with the world's second highest number of child deaths. Among other commitments, the First Lady called for the creation of a fund to support the sustained introduction and scale-up of childhood vaccines as well as a biannual African Summit to assess progress, with the goal of achieving universal vaccine coverage for all Nigerian children by the year 2015.

"With over one million Nigerian children dying each hear from conditions that can easily be prevented by vaccination, we all would be failing in our duties as mothers, parents and leaders in the various segments of our society, if we don't take this advantage to do something concrete," said Dame Patience Jonathan, First Lady of Nigeria.

The discussions took place this week at Nigeria's first-ever national Vaccine Summit, which brought together leaders from across the nation to address the country's need to stem its precipitously high number of child deaths. Specific outcomes included a call to action for Nigerian policy makers and leaders from across traditional and religious sectors to commit to adopting and helping ensure excellence at primary health care facilities in their communities; a call to create the Nigerian Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (NAVI), a public-private partnership that would provide sustained vaccine financing from within the country's borders; and the announcement of the plan to convene a biannual African Vaccine Summit in order to measure progress against milestones set forth by the Decade of Vaccines.

Nigeria has taken important steps in recent years to address its child mortality burden, including increasing vaccine coverage rates for polio, diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus vaccines in recent years and regionally introducing the meningitis A vaccine, designed specifically to curb meningitis outbreaks among sub-Saharan African populations. Yet vaccine coverage rates still fall short of the 90% target, and more than one million Nigerian children die before the age of five every year. Studies show that scaling up new and existing vaccines to 90% coverage could save more than 600,000 Nigerian children in the next 10 years, and eventually add an economic value equivalent to $17 billion to the nation's economy.

"The actions taken by Nigeria's leaders this week are a critical step toward protecting Nigeria's next generation. We salute their vision, commitment and political will to make needed changes," said Orin Levine, executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "Together with civil society, we look forward to assuring that today's political will translates into practical action on the ground."

An IVAC study conducted in collaboration with the government of Nigeria detailed what it found to be the most feasible and impactful Nigerian-driven solutions for scaling up vaccine access in the country. Currently, access to and availability of vaccines varies widely among the country's 36 states, and vaccine stock-outs remain an issue.

The 2012 Nigerian Vaccine Summit represents a collaboration between the Federal Ministry of Health, the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, the Pediatric Association of Nigeria, IVAC and other Nigerian and international partners. More information on the Summit and its outcomes can be found at http://nigeriavaccinesummit.org/ .

SOURCE: International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC)

Nigeria Risks Future As Population Explodes.

In a quarter-century, at the rate Nigeria is growing, 300 million people – a population about as big as that of the present-day United States – will live in a country the size of Arizona and New Mexico. In this commercial hub, where the area's population has by some estimates nearly doubled over 15 years to 21 million, living standards for many are falling.

Rooms in a typical apartment block are known as a "Face Me, Face You" because whole families squeeze into 7-by-11-foot rooms along a narrow corridor. Up to 50 people share a kitchen, toilet and sink – though the pipes in the neighborhood often no longer carry water.

At Alapere Primary School, more than 100 students cram into most classrooms, two to a desk.

As graduates pour out of high schools and universities, Nigeria's unemployment rate is nearly 50 percent for people in urban areas ages 15 to 24 – driving crime and discontent. The growing upper-middle class also feels the squeeze, as commutes from even nearby suburbs can run 2 to 3 hours.

Last October, the United Nations announced the global population had breached 7 billion and would expand rapidly for decades, taxing natural resources if countries cannot better manage the growth.

But nearly all of the increase is here in sub-Saharan Africa, where the rise in population far outstrips economic expansion. Of the roughly 20 countries where women average more than five children, almost all are in the region.

Elsewhere in the developing world, in Asia and Latin America, fertility rates have fallen sharply in recent generations and now resemble those in the United States – just above two children per woman. That transformation was driven in each country by a mix of educational and employment opportunities for women, access to contraception, urbanization and an evolving middle class.

Whether similar forces will defuse the population bomb in sub-Sarahan Africa is unclear.

"The pace of growth in Africa is unlike anything else ever in history and a critical problem," said Joel E. Cohen, a professor of population at Rockefeller University in New York City. "What is effective in the context of these countries may not be what worked in Latin America or Kerala or Bangladesh."

Across sub-Saharan Africa, alarmed governments have begun to act, often reversing longstanding policies that encouraged or accepted large families. Nigeria made contraceptives free last year, and officials are promoting smaller families as a key to economic salvation, holding up the financial gains in nations like Thailand as inspiration.

Nigeria, already the world's sixthmost populous nation with 167 million people, is a crucial test case, since its success or failure at bringing down birthrates will have outsize influence on the world's population. If this large nation rich with oil cannot control its growth, what hope is there for many smaller, poorer countries?

"Population is key," said Peter Ogunjuyigbe, a demographer at Obafemi Awolowo University in the small central city of Ile-Ife. "If you don't take care of population, schools can't cope, hospitals can't cope, there's not enough housing – there's nothing you can do to have economic development."

The Nigerian government is rapidly building infrastructure but cannot keep up, and some experts worry that it, and other African nations, will not act forcefully enough to rein in population growth.

For two decades, the Nigerian government has recommended that families limit themselves to four children, with little effect.

In Nigeria, experts say, the swelling ranks of unemployed youths with little hope have fed the growth of the radical Islamist group Boko Haram, which has bombed or burned more than a dozen churches and schools this year.

Internationally, the African population boom means more illegal immigration, already at a high, according to Frontex, the European border agency. There are up to 400,000 undocumented Africans in the United States.

Nigeria, like many sub-Saharan African countries, has experienced a slight decline in average fertility rates, to about 5.5 last year from 6.8 in 1975. But this level of fertility, combined with an extremely young population, still puts such countries on a steep and disastrous growth curve. Half of Nigerian women are under 19, just entering their peak childbearing years.

Sub-Saharan Africa, which now accounts for 12 percent of the world's population, will account for more than a third by 2100, by many projections.