Enugu, 14 June 2017 - The Enugu state Commissioner for Health Dr Samuel Ngwu remains convinced that the support given by World Health Organization (WHO) is instrumental to building sustainable institutional capacity for disease surveillance and immunization in Nigeria. The commissioner made this declaration at the quarterly review meeting of the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) cluster in Enugu conducted on 13-15 June 2017.

“The review meeting is apt as it will provide a platform for cross-fertilization of ideas and elicit robust and critical discussions among participants. I am quite convinced that at the end of deliberations here, the meeting will come out with a comprehensive strategy that will clearly resolve the numerous challenges militating against optimal performance in our programme implementation across different levels in Nigeria”, the commissioner says.

He regretted  that Nigeria still records very high maternal, new born and child mortality and is inarguably among the cohort of countries that made insufficient progress towards the attainment of Millennium development Goals (MDGs) which targeted  the reduction of under 5 mortality rate and maternal mortality ratio.

Quarterly review is often held by the WHO country office with all Zonal and State Coordinators to take stock of programme performance at national, state and local government area (LGA) levels; share global and national updates focus on strengthening accountability for results; and discuss priority areas and activities for next three months.

As part of the activities leading to the review meeting, the EPI  Team Leader (TL)  Dr Fiona Braka led WHO team to  pay an advocacy visit to the Enugu state Commissioner for Health to discuss the peculiar challenges affecting the immunization performance in the state. In the ensuing discussions, the TL solicited Enugu state government’s support in establishing a State Task Force to conduct all EPI activities and harmonize partner support in the state, strengthen routine immunization through adequate funding and address cold chain gaps in providing quality services to beneficiaries.

Enugu state recorded the highest number of unimmunized children in the South East Zone of Nigeria with corresponding high dropout rate in some LGAs in the first quarter of 2017.  Additionally, consistent breakdown of cold chain equipment at LGA and health facility levels portend grave risks for the immunization programme.

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For more information, please contact :

Technical contact:

Dr Fiona Braka; Tel: +234 703 170 5252; Email: brakaf [at] who.int

Media contact:

Ms  Charity Warigon; Tel: +234 810 221 0093; Email: warigonc [at] who.int

Below :

01 Group photo with Enugu Commissioner for Health (center)

02 Dr Fiona Braka (left) discussing with Dr Ngwu the Enugu Commissioner for Health in his office