“Hello, welcome to the department of Disease Control & Immunization”
We are responsible for Goal no. 1 of Making Nigerians Healthy” which is control of Preventable Diseases. The department ensures all children are vaccinated against various Preventable Diseases (that is, Tuberculosis, Whooping cough, Polio, Tetanus, Measles, etc).
In the past two (02) years, we have been able to increase the number of Nigerian children that have protection against this Vaccines Preventable Diseases (VPD)s by more than 30%; bringing our administrative coverage of DPT3, a proxy indication of immunization performance to well over 70%. Effort in the past two (02) years towards Global Polio Eradication has resulted in reduction of Wild Polio Virus (WPV) by 94%; while considerable achievement have been recorded in Accelerated Disease Control (ADC) activities. Polio eradication initiative is a global action plan to eradicate poliomyelitis and halt childhood misery associated with the Disease.
With a global investment in excess of $ 10 billion in the past 20 years, Nigeria – one of the four (4) countries with indigenous Wild Polio Virus, has recorded tremendous progress since 2009. The efforts which systematically engage the political, traditional and religious groups had ensured a reduction of the disease by more than 90%. On Accelerated Diseases Control, the measles reduction strategy has been the integrated Measles campaign (IMC); aimed at giving second opportunity of Measles vaccination to children for age 9 months to 5 years.
As we embark on the 3rd of such campaign in January/February 2011, all efforts in these direction have resulted in modest reduction of child morbidity and mortality thereby contributing to the Millennium Development Goals 4.
