Greetings!

Friends of Vaccine Network for Disease Control

It is with utmost excitement that we present the rebirthed (rebranded) Vaccine Network for Disease Control to you. Having served the Nigerian population for over a decade, this rebirth had become pertinent.

We started this journey with a burning determination to safeguard the lives of children through access to life-saving vaccines at a time when Nigeria recorded the lowest vaccine uptake due to low access and acceptance of vaccines by many vulnerable communities. Now, we are proud of the great progress made with routine immunization, accentuated by the country’s recent Polio-free certification. However, this whole time has sufficed us to learn that vaccines are not stand-alone interventions. If we are to indeed secure the lives and prosperity of the Nigerian children, adolescents and women (and many often-marginalized groups), we needed an integrated multi-sectoral approach that offered more than just vaccines. We learned that in a continent faced with more than bodily diseases; issues of poverty, inequities and insecurities made it imperative that we broaden the meaning of vaccines.

Hence, vaccines, being preventive and highly cost-effective, have inspired us take on the ambitious task of vaccinating the future of our communities through social vaccines such as education, economic empowerment, protective policies for vulnerable groups and gender equality. Our philosophy has evolved to this - we see anything that interrupts growth and progress in our community as a dis-ease and anything that promotes development in our communities as the vaccine. However, we cannot do this alone (because we cannot). We ask for more collaboration and support from you: kind-hearted individuals, our partners in the public and private sectors (old and new, local and global), and our esteemed followers, likers, tweeps and advocates for vaccines on all our platforms. Continue to believe in us as we launch into a new decade of evidence-based service. Just like you, we too cannot wait to see how VACCINES will beat COVID-19 and better engender sustainable development in entirely diverse ways. Watch out 🙂