Petty Officer 3rd Class Sarah Murphy, a hospital corpsman, prepares to give the anthrax vaccination shot to Petty Officer 3rd Class Leoner Butcher, at the Troop Medical Clinic on Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, Oct. 27.
The Institute of Human Virology Nigeria (IHVN) has emphasized the need for governments and healthcare facilities to train healthcare workers and invest in infrastructure to enhance monitoring of Adverse Events Following Immunisation (AEFI).
Project Lead AEFI Surveillance at IHVN, Victoria Etuk, made the call in Abuja during an event organized by the Institute through its International Research Center of Excellence (IRCE), to unveil major findings from AEFI of COVID-19 vaccines.
The two-day meeting brought together experts from government agencies, state epidemiologists, healthcare providers, and international partners to review data and evaluate Nigeria’s vaccine surveillance system across four states of Lagos, Rivers, Oyo, and Kano and the FCT.
The Adverse Events Following Immunization (AEFI) project was initiated to strengthen the surveillance and reporting of adverse events following COVID-19 vaccinations. With vaccine safety being a global public health concern, the project not only improved detection and documentation of side effects but also built public trust in immunization efforts during and after the pandemic.
One of the project’s biggest achievements was the rollout of the DHIS-2 platform; a digital reporting tool designed to capture real-time data on vaccine side effects.
Victoria explained that the tool enables faster and more accurate decision-making during outbreaks.
Etuk disclosed that over 500 healthcare workers, including immunization officers and surveillance officers, have been trained on how to detect and report vaccine-related side effects.
She also said there is the need to overcome fear among health workers who often hesitate to report AEFI cases due to stigma or fear of blame.
According to her, “Nobody has ever been penalised for reporting an AEFI. We needed to support and reassure our frontline workers,” she said.
The Project Director for the SECURE-Nigeria Project at IHVN, Rita Okonkwo, stressed that while the Nigeria is not in a pandemic, it was important to review lessons learned.
“We are still using vaccines to manage outbreaks. This is the right time to scale up what worked during COVID and apply it to routine immunisations,” she said.
The Assistant Director of Pharmacovigilance at NAFDAC, Dr. Abiodun Abiola, stressed the importance of harmonising reporting tools across the country to avoid fragmented data.
“Fragmented data weakens our national response.
We need a clear, unified system for tracking vaccine effects,” she added.
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