The proportion of children in Kwara who received the third dose of the pentavalent vaccine (Penta 3) rose from 34.9 per cent in 2024 to 50.4 per cent in 2025–2026.
Prof. Nusirat Elelu, Executive Secretary of the Kwara State Primary Healthcare Development Agency, disclosed this in a statement made available to reporters on Wednesday.
Elelu said the increase was reported in a recent survey released by the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare. She described the findings as an encouraging sign of progress in child health across the state.
She added that the proportion of children aged 12 to 23 months who had received no vaccines fell from 48.1 per cent to 27.3 per cent during the period under review.
According to her, this reflects substantial progress in reaching more children with life-saving immunisation services.
Elelu explained that the pentavalent vaccine, administered to children at six, 10 and 14 weeks, protects against five serious diseases, including diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough.
“This improvement in our pentavalent vaccine coverage underscores the Kwara Government’s efforts to improve child health.
“It further reaffirms the importance of routine immunisation in protecting children and promoting healthy development,” she said.
Elelu said the survey also found that stunting declined from 40.8 per cent to 35.5 per cent, wasting fell from 6.1 per cent to 3.5 per cent, and underweight prevalence dropped from 24.5 per cent to 14.8 per cent.
She said the improvements represented encouraging progress in efforts to promote child survival, healthy growth and overall well-being in Kwara.
“This is one of the greatest improvements in our nutrition indices recorded in Kwara in recent years,” she said.
She attributed the progress to the state government’s investment in primary healthcare, particularly its support for nutrition-sensitive interventions and the biannual Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Week.
Elelu reiterated the agency’s commitment to strengthening primary healthcare through routine and outreach immunisation, community mobilisation, nutrition services and growth monitoring.
She urged parents and caregivers to help sustain the gains by taking their children to the nearest primary healthcare centre for free routine immunisation.
Elelu advised them to keep their children’s immunisation cards up to date, participate in community outreach programmes and ensure their children’s growth is monitored regularly.
