Bothered by the rate at which children under the age of five die due to ailments from childhood killer diseases resulting from lack of immunisation, the Kwara State Government and Association of Civil Society in Malaria Immunisation and Nutrition (ACOMIN) have had discussions on how to protect children from childhood killer diseases through immunisation. The event held in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital.

It was in commemoration of this year's celebration of World Immunisation Week whose theme was "Close the Immunisation Gap".

The programme was sponsored by Global Alliance for Vaccines (GAVI). The state government revealed that the fall in accruals from Federal Government to states has affected all sectors, including the health sector.

The state's Immunisation Officer, Hajia Hajarat Suleiman said some immunisation health workers discharged their duties disinterestedly because of lack of financial motivation.

She added that though the World Health Organisation (WHO) is the sponsor of the immunisation exercise, states complement through counterpart funding.

She said: "Health workers in charge of immunisation carry out the job half-heartedly because they are not well motivated. It is not that they don't know the job; they have been trained and retrained. The truth is that they are not being paid salary.

"All of us are working towards the same goal. That is why many of the health workers have volunteered to be part of the immunisation exercises.

"I am happy all of us are here because of our children. We want them to live and be protected from all the childhood killer diseases.

"Truly it is the World Health Organisation (WHO) that is sponsoring the programme while every state government is expected to pay its counterpart funds. But the dwindling revenues accruing to the states, including Kwars, has affected the health sector.

"t has been long the state released its counterpart funds due to the reason highlighted above. Before the end of this year, government would be able to support any of your programmes."

Contributing, Secretary of ACOMIN, Adewoye Oluwasesan said "World Immunisation Week provides global platform to strengthen our collective efforts to ensure vaccination for every child, whoever they are and wherever they live.

"Immunisation is a proven tool for controlling and eliminating life-threatening infectious diseases and immunisation is the process whereby a person is made immune or resistant to an infectious disease, typically by the administration of a vaccine. It is estimated to avert between two and three million deaths each year."

He noted that civil society organisations (CSOs), in partnership with governments, are important actors in implementing immunisation programmes. Mr. Oluwasesan added that the partnership delivered up to 65 per cent of immunisation services in many developing countries; strengthening health systems and training health workers; supporting logistics and vaccine delivery.

Other benefits of the partnership, according to him, include transparency and accountability by bridging the gap between governments or global health actors such as GAVI and communities; representing the voice of communities and the issues that affect them in area of vaccine preventable diseases; encouraging all stakeholders to be more accountable and transparent in their actions; influencing public policy and supporting resource mobilisation.

In order to close the immunisation gap, Mr. Oluwasesan recommendation that CSOs should include "integrating immunisation with other health services, such as post-natal care for mothers and babies; strengthening health systems so that vaccines continue to be given even in times of crisis/communal clashes and ensuring that everyone could access vaccines and afford to pay for them." He added that the Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP) envisions a world where everyone is free from vaccine preventable diseases by 2020.