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The United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, has raised the alarm over the resurgence of polio in Lagos State.
DAILY POST reports that Celine Lafoucriere, Chief of the UNICEF Lagos Field Office, sounded the warning on Tuesday during the World Immunisation Week and Walk for Polio Week 2025 in Lagos.
According to her, “Right here in Lagos, we are detecting a resurgence of polio. Low immunisation coverage, poor sanitation, and malnutrition are keeping the door open for polio and other vaccine preventable diseases. Routine immunisation is our best bet. We already have the tools—the oral polio vaccine is safe, effective, and it works. But do we have the knowledge and the coverage?”
She lamented that despite the growing availability of vaccines, some segments of the population only have access to them during campaigns, which she noted is not sustainable.
“Routine immunisation must become the norm for every child born in Lagos. This is the only way to ensure a calendar of vaccination can be established for every child, ensuring that vaccination is indeed powerful. For this to happen, we need action,” she stated.
The Chief of the UNICEF Lagos Field Office assured that the agency would continue to support Lagos State and the Nigerian people by delivering vaccines to the hardest-to-reach children through vaccination campaigns, training and equipping health workers, and building trust in every community to ensure no child is left behind.
She reiterated that routine immunisation represents the only hope for the future.
“As we walk today, we make a call for stronger routine immunisation systems to be made possible through a renewed political commitment to ensure greater health education is available to the whole population, so that no parent in Nigeria ever again takes the risk of leaving their child vulnerable to preventable diseases. One unvaccinated child is a risk to all. But together, united, we can end zero-dose, end polio for good,” she added.
Lafoucriere revealed that, to date, two million Nigerian children remain zero-dose or unimmunised.
She also noted that since 1974, vaccines have saved over 150 million lives—equivalent to more than 3 million lives per year or 6 lives every minute over the past five decades.
While emphasising the extraordinary power of vaccines, she acknowledged the role of global efforts, noting that the world has seen a 99.9% reduction in polio cases since 1988.
She concluded by stating that before the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, 1,000 children were paralysed every day, and that, as of today, the oral polio vaccine has helped prevent 24 million cases of paralysis.
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