Integrated human and animal vaccination delivery to Nomadic Fulani communities in Northern Nigeria 2015.

Background: Nigeria remains the only African country yet to interrupt transmission of wild polio virus and has a high incidence of childhood vaccine preventable diseases. Routine immunization (RI) services have not achieved sufficient coverages in remote rural settings especially among nomadic Fulani pastoralist. The high mobility and dispersion of these pastoralists makes easily missed by healthcare services yet these pastoralist often seek medical care for their animals regardless of the cost. We adopted an integrated human and animal vaccination strategy with the aim of increasing access and demand for RI services among nomadic pastoralist. Methods & Materials: Nomadic communities and stock routes in Bauchi were identified and geocoded using GPS enabled phones. Weassessed RI and animal vaccination coverage in these communities. Three rounds of targeted joint human and animal vaccination campaigns were carried out. Vaccinations and other healthcare services were administered to children, women of child bearing age, cattle and dogs. Vaccination teams were composed of local veterinary officers, healthcare workers and health promotion officials. Results: A total of 4285 children less than one year of age and 1624 women were vaccinated in 49 settlements. Vaccination coverage increased from 22.7% to 80.1%. Of the 1271 children given oral polio vaccine (OPV) and 836 given pentavalent vaccine, 311(24.5%) and 348(41. 6%) respectively were zero dose. Dropout rate was 42%. A total of 496(30.5%) women that received Tetanus Toxoid (TT) received it for the first time. The animal component of the study gave intervention to a total of 28581 cattle increasing the coverage from 41% to 61%, 26 dogs were vaccinated against rabies. Conclusion: Routine immunization coverage increased in these communities largely due to the administration of human vaccinations alongside animal vaccination and other healthcare services. High dropout rate recorded can be attributed to the high mobility of these pastoralists. We recommend that the government adopt this strategy in nomadic pastoralist communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]