AFRICAN JOURNAL OF HEALTH ECONOMICS - Volume 3 Issue 2, December 2014

Pages: 1-9
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ROUTINE IMMUNIZATION IN NIGERIA: THE ROLE OF POLITICS, RELIGION AND CULTURAL PRACTICES

Author: BEN C. ANYENE

Category: Review & Research

Abstract:

World Health Organization estimates indicate that close to a million children (868,000 children) under the age of five years die in Nigeria each year. This places Nigeria in the second position in terms of global annual childhood deaths after India. Many of these deaths are caused by vaccine-preventable diseases. Historically, politics has played a major and frequently destabilizing role in routine immunization uptake in Nigeria. Beginning from 1979 when Nigeria’s Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) was established, politics has been a key factor in routine immunization in Nigeria. One such theory is that polio vaccination and other vaccines are a part of a western plot to sterilize young girls and eliminate the Muslim population. However, it can be said that religion often works in concert with other factors rather than alone. Cultural practices, like religion and politics, play a key role in uptake of routine immunization. Efforts to counter detrimental cultural practices are undertaken in different parts of the country, but they have not always been successful, partly because these cultural practices are sometimes deeply entrenched and other times because there is insufficient engagement with the community. Political, cultural and religious dynamics are relevant for the routine immunization in Nigeria and play key roles in determining uptake rates. Given the rates of childhood mortality in Nigeria, these are matters that must be addressed with sensitivity but also with urgency to stem the tide of needless deaths of children in this country. The article is substantially derived from a discussion paper the author presented at a retreat of The Nigeria Academy of Science Vaccine Immunization Committee (NAS-VIAC) stakeholders held in Abuja, Nigeria on December 04 – 05, 2013.

Keywords: Routine immunization, Culture, Politics, Religion, Polio, Vaccines

DOI URL: http://doi.org/10.35202/AJHE.2014.3201