An Assessment of the 2017-2018 Post Measles Campaign Coverage Survey in the South-south Zone of Nigeria

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends measles vaccination campaigns as an effective strategy that is required to halt and revert the burden of measles worldwide, especially in the African region. This is a review of the 2017/2018 measles campaign in South-south Zone, Nigeria. 

The WHO EPI cluster survey methodology was used to survey a total of 1260 households covering 1355 children aged 9-59 months, yielding a sufficient sample size to provide estimated zonal and state measles vaccine coverage. Data collection was done using census and survey program software and supplementary immunization activity module of vaccination coverage quality indicators while the analysis was run on Stata.

The measles vaccination and routine immunization coverage in the South-south zone of Nigeria were 87.6% and 67.6% respectively. While town criers/mobilizers (49.6%) were the commonest source of information for the campaign, the lack of awareness (28.4%) was the most important reason given by the mothers and care-givers for non-vaccination. Fever (6.6%) was the most commonly reported adverse event following the immunization.

The zonal vaccination coverage was less than the WHO recommended coverage that would be needed to stop the measles epidemic in Nigeria. Town criers were very useful for information dissemination. The lack of awareness was a major reason for non-vaccination.