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Early Impact of SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic on Immunization Services in Nigeria

Background: By 11 March 2022, there were 450,229,635 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases and 6,019,085 deaths globally, with Nigeria reporting 254,637 cases and 3142 deaths. One of the essential healthcare services that have been impacted by the pandemic is routine childhood immunization. According...

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Autores principales: Essoh, Tene-Alima, Adeyanju, Gbadebo Collins, Adamu, Abdu A., Ahawo, Alain Komi, Aka, Desquith, Tall, Haoua, Aplogan, Aristide, Wiysonge, Charles S.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9315672/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35891271
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/vaccines10071107
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author Essoh, Tene-Alima
Adeyanju, Gbadebo Collins
Adamu, Abdu A.
Ahawo, Alain Komi
Aka, Desquith
Tall, Haoua
Aplogan, Aristide
Wiysonge, Charles S.
author_facet Essoh, Tene-Alima
Adeyanju, Gbadebo Collins
Adamu, Abdu A.
Ahawo, Alain Komi
Aka, Desquith
Tall, Haoua
Aplogan, Aristide
Wiysonge, Charles S.
author_sort Essoh, Tene-Alima
collection PubMed
description Background: By 11 March 2022, there were 450,229,635 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases and 6,019,085 deaths globally, with Nigeria reporting 254,637 cases and 3142 deaths. One of the essential healthcare services that have been impacted by the pandemic is routine childhood immunization. According to the 2018 National Demographic and Health Survey, only 31% of children aged 12–23 months were fully vaccinated in Nigeria, and 19% of eligible children in the country had not received any vaccination. A further decline in coverage due to the pandemic can significantly increase the risk of vaccine-preventable-disease outbreaks among children in Nigeria. To mitigate such an occurrence, it is imperative to urgently identify how the pandemic and the response strategies have affected vaccination services, hence, the goal of the study. Methods: The research method was qualitative, including in-depth interviews of healthcare workers and focus group discussions (FGDs) with caregivers of children aged 0–23 months. We selected one state from each of the three zones of Nigeria: northern, central, and southern. Within each state, 10 local government areas and 20 healthcare facilities were purposively selected. In each facility, 10 healthcare workers were invited for interviews. Overall, 517 healthcare workers were interviewed. For the focus group discussion, 30 communities were selected. Within each selected community, six consenting caregivers were included. Overall, 180 caregivers participated. The data were analyzed using thematic inductive content analysis. Results: Three significant impacts that were observed are: difficulties in accessibility to immunization services, declining immunization demand and uptake among caregivers due to varying factors, and erosion of vaccine confidence among both caregivers and healthcare workers. Movement restriction and lockdown had numerous major impacts, such as decreased general healthcare service delivery, increased transportation costs, fewer engagements that promote vaccine uptake, and cessation of mobile vaccination campaigns that target hard-to-reach communities. Moreover, misinformation, conspiracy beliefs about the pandemic and COVID-19 vaccines, and risk perception negatively influenced general vaccine confidence. Conclusion: The results of this early impact study show that immunization was directly affected by the pandemic and provide insights into areas where interventions are needed for recovery.
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spelling pubmed-93156722022-07-27 Early Impact of SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic on Immunization Services in Nigeria Essoh, Tene-Alima Adeyanju, Gbadebo Collins Adamu, Abdu A. Ahawo, Alain Komi Aka, Desquith Tall, Haoua Aplogan, Aristide Wiysonge, Charles S. Vaccines (Basel) Article Background: By 11 March 2022, there were 450,229,635 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases and 6,019,085 deaths globally, with Nigeria reporting 254,637 cases and 3142 deaths. One of the essential healthcare services that have been impacted by the pandemic is routine childhood immunization. According to the 2018 National Demographic and Health Survey, only 31% of children aged 12–23 months were fully vaccinated in Nigeria, and 19% of eligible children in the country had not received any vaccination. A further decline in coverage due to the pandemic can significantly increase the risk of vaccine-preventable-disease outbreaks among children in Nigeria. To mitigate such an occurrence, it is imperative to urgently identify how the pandemic and the response strategies have affected vaccination services, hence, the goal of the study. Methods: The research method was qualitative, including in-depth interviews of healthcare workers and focus group discussions (FGDs) with caregivers of children aged 0–23 months. We selected one state from each of the three zones of Nigeria: northern, central, and southern. Within each state, 10 local government areas and 20 healthcare facilities were purposively selected. In each facility, 10 healthcare workers were invited for interviews. Overall, 517 healthcare workers were interviewed. For the focus group discussion, 30 communities were selected. Within each selected community, six consenting caregivers were included. Overall, 180 caregivers participated. The data were analyzed using thematic inductive content analysis. Results: Three significant impacts that were observed are: difficulties in accessibility to immunization services, declining immunization demand and uptake among caregivers due to varying factors, and erosion of vaccine confidence among both caregivers and healthcare workers. Movement restriction and lockdown had numerous major impacts, such as decreased general healthcare service delivery, increased transportation costs, fewer engagements that promote vaccine uptake, and cessation of mobile vaccination campaigns that target hard-to-reach communities. Moreover, misinformation, conspiracy beliefs about the pandemic and COVID-19 vaccines, and risk perception negatively influenced general vaccine confidence. Conclusion: The results of this early impact study show that immunization was directly affected by the pandemic and provide insights into areas where interventions are needed for recovery. MDPI 2022-07-11 /pmc/articles/PMC9315672/ /pubmed/35891271 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/vaccines10071107 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Essoh, Tene-Alima
Adeyanju, Gbadebo Collins
Adamu, Abdu A.
Ahawo, Alain Komi
Aka, Desquith
Tall, Haoua
Aplogan, Aristide
Wiysonge, Charles S.
Early Impact of SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic on Immunization Services in Nigeria
title Early Impact of SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic on Immunization Services in Nigeria
title_full Early Impact of SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic on Immunization Services in Nigeria
title_fullStr Early Impact of SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic on Immunization Services in Nigeria
title_full_unstemmed Early Impact of SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic on Immunization Services in Nigeria
title_short Early Impact of SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic on Immunization Services in Nigeria
title_sort early impact of sars-cov-2 pandemic on immunization services in nigeria
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9315672/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35891271
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/vaccines10071107
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