The minister made this known during the sensitisation workshop on immunisation and PHC organized by the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) on Monday in Abuja.
The workshop was organised to reach out to civil servants, to enable them champion the demand for routine immunisation and PHC services across the country.
Adewole said there are no less than 30,000 primary health care facilities in Nigeria but only 20 per cent of the Primary Health Care Centres (PHCs) are functional.
He added that the government’s decision was to keep revitalizing the PHC in Nigeria as resources became available, stressing that PHC was a facility that was closer to people.
Adewole noted that Nigeria was not doing well with immunization, when you look across the country, only one out of four children has received full dosage of the immunization package.
He said when you look across states only one state scored up to 80 per cent of routine immunization coverage, while some are less than 10 per cent.
He said the participants had the duty to prevent children from dying, ensure that the children remained healthy and change the narrative of immunization in Nigeria.
The minister said that the initiative was essential and it was a mark of recognition of the importance of civil servants in the society.
He added that civil servants were the engine room, without them nothing works in the society.
Earlier, Dr Faisal Shuaib, Executive Director NPHCDA, said the workshop was to reach out to civil servants to champion the demand for routine immunization and PHC services across the country.
He added that there was no other set of people who were as educated and influential in the community as the civil servants.
He said the agency took a step to ensure that more people were engaged, to create more demand for routine immunization and other primary health care services.
While responding to questions on the impact of the Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU) strike on preventing eligible children from accessing vaccination, the Executive Director said the agency was very worried about the strike.
Shuaib, however, expressed optimism that the strike would be called off sooner than later
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