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"These Are Real Children, Not Statistics": Korea, UNICEF Launch $5.6m Drive to Reach Nigeria's 2.2 Million Zero-Dose Children
The numbers are staggering, but they are not the point. With an estimated 2.2 million children who have never received a single routine vaccine — the highest number of zero‑dose children on the African continent and among the highest in the world — Nigeria has been handed a distinction that no nation should ever claim. On 15 April 2026, at the Badagry City Hall in Lagos State, the Republic of Korea and UNICEF launched a $5.6 million immunisation drive designed to reach these invisible children: the ones born in urban slums, border communities, and remote settlements that fall almost entirely outside the reach of existing health services. Wafaa Saeed, UNICEF Nigeria Country Representative, put it plainly: "These are real children. They are not just numbers or statistics. And they are at real risk of dying from diseases that could have been prevented by simple vaccinations."
The project, which is part of a broader $20 million third‑phase global partnership between Korea and UNICEF, will run from December 2025 to December 2026 and target 40 local government areas across six states: Lagos, Bauchi, Adamawa, and the Federal Capital Territory, with two additional states to be phased in. The $5.6 million allocation to Nigeria represents a targeted investment in what the Consul General of the Republic of Korea in Lagos, Mr. Lee Sang Ho, described as "a symbolic goodwill gesture" that recognises the urgency of closing Nigeria's immunisation gap. "One child dying from a vaccine‑preventable disease is too many, let alone 2.2 million children who have not even been reached at all," Lee said at the flag‑off ceremony.
The Zero‑Dose Crisis: A Geography of Exclusion
Who are Nigeria's 2.2 million zero‑dose children? They are, overwhelmingly, the children of the poor, the displaced, and the geographically marginalised. They live in slums where health workers rarely visit, in border communities that slip between the administrative cracks of state and local government, and in conflict zones where insecurity has shattered the cold‑chain infrastructure that vaccines require to remain effective. They are not a single population; they are a geography of exclusion, a map of every place where Nigeria has failed to build the roads, clinics, and trust that routine immunisation demands.
The UNICEF data is clear: Nigeria accounts for the highest number of unvaccinated children in Africa, and the persistence of this crisis reflects deep inequalities in access rather than any failure of vaccines themselves. The key interventions under the Korea‑UNICEF partnership are designed to address precisely these systemic gaps: community mobilisation to build trust and demand for vaccines, systematic tracking of children who miss their vaccinations, and integrated health service delivery that bundles immunisation with other essential services like nutrition screening and birth registration. The goal is not merely to vaccinate children but to bring them into the health system — to make them visible to the state for the first time.
Nigeria's immunisation challenge has been compounded by years of misinformation, inconsistent supply chains, and the lingering aftermath of the COVID‑19 pandemic, which disrupted routine vaccination programmes globally. In 2024, Nigeria was among the ten countries that together accounted for more than 60 per cent of the world's unvaccinated children — a cohort that has come to be known in global health circles as "zero‑dose children." The term is clinical, but the reality it describes is deadly: unvaccinated children are vulnerable to polio, measles, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, and tuberculosis — diseases that are entirely preventable with vaccines that cost pennies per dose.
Badagry and Beyond: The Frontline of the Fight
The choice of Badagry — a historic coastal town on Nigeria's western border with Benin Republic — as the flag‑off location was symbolic and strategic. Border communities are notoriously difficult to reach with routine immunisation; families move across national boundaries, children are born outside formal health facilities, and records are frequently incomplete or non‑existent. By launching the campaign in Badagry, UNICEF and the Lagos State Government signalled their intent to target precisely these hard‑to‑reach populations. The initiative builds on gains recorded during the Measles‑Rubella vaccination campaign and draws on lessons learned from previous polio eradication efforts that successfully reached children in some of Nigeria's most inaccessible communities.
Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo‑Olu, represented at the event by the Commissioner for Health, Professor Akin Abayomi, described the Korea‑UNICEF partnership as a "force multiplier that strengthens our existing immunisation infrastructure." The state has invested heavily in primary healthcare strengthening, including the recruitment of over 3,000 health workers and the revitalisation of cold‑chain equipment across its 57 local government areas. But Abayomi acknowledged that without international partnerships, the ambition of reaching every child would remain unrealised. "The last mile is always the most expensive," he said. "These are the children who live on the margins, and it takes resources, planning, and political will to reach them."
The Broader Campaign: Kwara, Kogi and the Race Against Time
The Korea‑UNICEF partnership is not occurring in isolation. Across Nigeria, states are racing to close immunisation gaps ahead of the rainy season, when the risk of disease outbreaks escalates. In Kwara State, the government has intensified preparations for its April 2026 polio immunisation campaign, targeting 1.2 million children under the age of five across all 16 local government areas. The state's Primary Health Care Development Agency has been conducting strategic engagements with stakeholders and media professionals to counter vaccine misinformation and build community trust. In the previous round, over 700,000 children were vaccinated; this time, the target is one million. Authorities in Kogi State have also ramped up efforts, with at least 77,495 children immunised against polio in remote communities across seven local government areas during a recent catch‑up campaign.
These state‑level efforts, while encouraging, highlight the scale of the challenge that the Korea‑UNICEF partnership seeks to address. Nigeria requires an estimated $300 million annually to fully fund its routine immunisation programme, but the government consistently allocates a fraction of that amount in the national budget. The result is a system that depends heavily on donor funding — a precarious arrangement that leaves millions of children vulnerable whenever global priorities shift. The $5.6 million from Korea is, in this context, both generous and insufficient: a bridge that carries Nigeria partway across the immunisation gap but does not reach the other side.
Misinformation and the Battle for Trust
Beyond the logistical challenges lies a more insidious obstacle: the erosion of trust. In Kwara State, the Primary Health Care Development Agency was forced in March 2026 to issue a public rebuttal of "misleading claims circulating across the state, particularly on social media, that vaccines administered to children are harmful." The agency described the claims as "false and dangerous" and said the vaccines are safe, effective, and approved by the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) and the World Health Organization. The statement was necessary because vaccine hesitancy — fuelled by a toxic combination of social media misinformation, historical distrust of government health programmes, and religious scepticism — has become a significant barrier to achieving universal immunisation coverage in northern Nigeria in particular.
The Korea‑UNICEF partnership explicitly targets this challenge through community mobilisation and integrated health service delivery. By training community health workers to engage directly with families, address their concerns, and provide accurate information, the programme aims to rebuild the trust that years of inconsistent service delivery have eroded. The systematic tracking of children who miss their vaccinations — a core component of the intervention — ensures that no child falls through the cracks simply because a parent forgot an appointment or could not afford transport to a clinic. "Every child counts," Saeed said. "That is the principle behind this partnership. We are not counting the children we reach; we are counting the children we have not yet reached, and we are going after them."
A Partnership That Demands Sustained Commitment
The Korea‑UNICEF $5.6 million immunisation drive is a lifeline for 2.2 million Nigerian children who have never seen the inside of a vaccination booth. It is a model of international cooperation that targets the hardest‑to‑reach communities with the interventions most likely to succeed: community trust‑building, systematic tracking, and integrated health delivery. But it is also a reminder of Nigeria's chronic underinvestment in its own primary healthcare system. The 40 local government areas targeted by the project represent a fraction of the communities where zero‑dose children live. The $5.6 million represents a fraction of the $300 million that the country needs annually. The challenge, therefore, is not merely to celebrate this partnership — though it deserves celebration — but to ensure that it catalyses a broader national commitment to immunisation. Because every child counts. And until every child is vaccinated, none of them are truly safe.
Stay tuned to Unuevbo TV for continuing coverage of Nigeria's immunisation efforts and the health partnerships working to protect the nation's children.
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