Millions of children may lose access to life-saving vaccines if Nigeria doesn’t come up with a way to pay a vaccine debt that could rise to N40 billion by 2020, public health experts have said.Dr Ben Anyene, chairman of the National Immunisation Financing Task Team (NIFT) says,“Without adequate funding for vaccines, the routine immunisation system will experience setbacks such as stockouts of vaccines that will ultimately lead to increased illness and/or deaths from vaccine preventable diseases.”
Speaking in Abuja ahead of a peer-review workshop next week for officials from five Anglophone countries, he said up to 7.5 million children in need of routine vaccination every year could be affected by the shortage of sustainable financing for immunisation—and others across Anglophone West Africa.
According to the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, full immunisation using available vaccines costs around N4,000 per child.
Introduction of new vaccines, including rotavirus, pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, human papilloma vaccine and meningitis A, will push the cost to N14,000 per child, an increase from current $274 million to $435 million a year.
Nigeria pays only 25% of the cost, the rest of it sourced from international partners and donors.
The agency has also projected Nigeria will need $210 billion to fund polio campaign until the country is declared polio-free after going three years without the virus by July 24 next year.
NPHCDA executive director Dr Muhammad Ado says Nigeria has secured funding for polio campaign this year but needs $284 million for 2017. Of that figure, some $8m is to come from government funding.
“Domestic funding for immunisation has to increase,” said Ado. “Domestic funding from Anglophone countries is not as expected…Government alone cannot do it.”
Officials, legislators and health experts from Anglophone Kenya, Uganda, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria are to meet in Abuja next week to chart sustainable ways for the region’s government to pay for immunisation.
But NIFT, set up last year by NPHCDA, has suggested an “immunisation trust fund” to bridge the funding gap between funding from the Basic Health Care Provision Fund built into the National Health Act and traditional appropriation for routine immunization.
The trust fund is to pool funding from private sector, willing Nigerians, captains of industry, any willing donor—at the same time being a rallying point for evidence, advocacy and support for domestically-funded immunisation.
Nigeria’s immunisation funding gap is expected to rise from N1 billion next year to N40 billion by 2020 when all arrangement with the Global Alliance for Vaccine Initiative (GAVI) runs out. GAVI began scaling down its co-payment for vaccines after a 2014 rebasing of Nigeria’s economy pushed gross national income from to $2950, surpassing the $1580 eligibility threshold for GAVI support.
Anyene said the loss of GAVI support has placed Nigeria’s immunization at a “critical stage where urgent action is needed to ensure sustainable financing for vaccines, devices, cold chain infrastructure
http://www.dailytrust.com.ng/news/general/millions-at-risk-as-nigeria-runs-into-vaccine-debt/142138.html
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