ASHENEWS reports that Save the Children International in collaboration with GSK has launched an initiative aimed at boosting child vaccination programs in Nigeria and Ethiopia.
The one-million-dollar initiative launched ahead of World Immunization Week aims to empower local organisations in Nigeria and Ethiopia and fast-track cutting-edge solutions to tackle long-standing barriers which prevent children from receiving vaccinations.
The organisation stated this in a statement signed and made available to our correspondent by the acting media and communication manager at Save the Children Nigeria, Rohods Daniel on Tuesday.
According to the statement, the Save the Children and GSK Immunisation Accelerator is open for applications from community-based organisations, national NGOs, local research teams, social enterprises and tech companies.
The most promising approaches will get the opportunity to increase their impact through financial and technical support and pilot their innovations in a live setting, the statement said.
“Save the Children’s statistic reveals that the continent of Africa has the highest number of ‘zero doses’ for those who have never received a routine vaccination in the world with 8.7 million children.
“More than a third of these children live in Nigeria and Ethiopia, where the combined impacts of the pandemic, poverty, climate change, instability and conflict are disrupting vaccination campaigns,” the statement said.
The statement further announced that the duo have renewed their decade-long partnership for five years with an investment of £15 million from GSK.
This will enable two new vaccination programmes in Ethiopia and Nigeria focused on reducing the number of zero-dose children.
“Building on this work, innovators applying to the Accelerator can address any type of barrier to the access and utilisation of vaccines on both the supply and demand side, such as improving community engagement, streamlining logistics to increase the availability and accessibility of vaccines and strengthening data management to track vaccine coverage rates,” the statement said.
Speaking further, the Country Director of Save the Children International Nigeria, Duncan Harvey stated: “Save the Children has been deeply committed to implementing immunization-related projects and interventions across Nigeria in response to the high rate of zero-dose and unimmunized children in the country.
“The Save the Children and GSK Immunisation Accelerator was born out of an understanding of the urgent necessity for locally led innovation to achieve our shared vision of a world where no child suffers from a vaccine-preventable disease.
“This collaboration opens new opportunities and efforts in tackling the barriers and defiance to immunization, especially in our communities. As locally led innovators, the uniqueness and relatability of the innovations will address widely the issues of zero-dose immunized children and provide more sustainable solutions that translate to a higher number of children being immunized.”
By Babagana Wakil, Maiduguri
