<div class="Abstracts u-font-serif" id="abstracts" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 18px; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(46, 46, 46); font-family: NexusSerif, Georgia, &quot;Times New Roman&quot;, Times, STIXGeneral, &quot;Cambria Math&quot;, &quot;Lucida Sans Unicode&quot;, &quot;Microsoft Sans Serif&quot;, &quot;Segoe UI Symbol&quot;, &quot;Arial Unicode MS&quot;, serif !important;"><div class="abstract author" id="ab005" style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><div id="as005" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p id="sp0005" style="margin-bottom: 16px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Vaccines are important public health tools that are critical in preventing the spread of infectious diseases. Sustainable access to these products is critical to saving lives. This study aimed at assessing the views of healthcare professionals on challenges and strategies toward access to vaccines in Nigeria. A cross-sectional study was undertaken amongst healthcare practitioners that attended a conference targeted at improving access to vaccines. A questionnaire was used for data collection, and analysis was undertaken using Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 25. Questionnaires were administered to a total of 604 participants, the response rate was 87.1%, with male participants (54.4%) being slightly better represented than females (45.6%). A tenth of the participants (10.6%) was educated up to a doctorate level, and a considerable proportion of the participants (43.6%) work in the government sector. Slightly above three quarters (78.3%) of the participants were of the view that lack of production capacity is an obstacle preventing access to vaccines, whilst above two-thirds of the respondents (70.5%) thought that the current funding for research and development towards vaccines is inadequate.</span><img src="/media/django-summernote/2022-11-11/3ae7b3ec-3a86-4f4b-9117-80e9fa9609a8.png" style="width: 100%;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;"> </span></p><p id="sp0005" style="margin-bottom: 16px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Also, a total of 70.1% of the sample disagreed that the current policy environment was favorable to the development of vaccines, whilst more than half of the participants (56%) disagreed that philanthropists and similar foundations support vaccine development in Nigeria. Furthermore, three-quarters of the participants (73.7%) indicated that sustainable access to vaccines in Nigeria can be achieved by harnessing local research capacity. This study consequently identified several challenges preventing access to vaccines in Nigeria, a robust policy that can address these bottlenecks is therefore critical to improving access to this public health tool.</span></p></div></div></div><div class="Keywords u-font-serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 32px; padding: 0px 0px 32px; font-size: 18px; line-height: 28px; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(235, 235, 235); color: rgb(46, 46, 46); font-family: NexusSerif, Georgia, &quot;Times New Roman&quot;, Times, STIXGeneral, &quot;Cambria Math&quot;, &quot;Lucida Sans Unicode&quot;, &quot;Microsoft Sans Serif&quot;, &quot;Segoe UI Symbol&quot;, &quot;Arial Unicode MS&quot;, serif !important;"><section id="s0005" style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><ul><li style="margin-bottom: 16px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Vaccines are biological products that can provide acquired immunity to a disease by inducing an immune response. </span></li><li style="margin-bottom: 16px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">This group of pharmaceuticals represents an important public health intervention tool that has a significant impact on infectious disease reduction globally</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">. </span></li><li style="margin-bottom: 16px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Immunization with effective vaccines brings immense value to families and communities by way of reducing the spread of infectious illnesses.&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Over the years, public health strategies underpinned by vaccination, have contributed to the control of common child killer diseases such as measles, diphtheria, and diarrhea cases due to rotavirus</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">. </span></li><li style="margin-bottom: 16px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Whilst significant progress has been made towards controlling and eradicating vaccine-preventable diseases, substantial gaps still exist in terms of access to vaccines. Available data suggest that immunization coverage in the African region is decreasing</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">. </span></li><li style="margin-bottom: 16px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Also, it was reported that a quarter of children from middle-income countries in the African region did not receive their third dose of the DPT vaccine in 2016, and average immunization coverage dropped from 83% in 2015 to 77% in 2017.</span></li></ul><p id="p0015" style="margin-bottom: 16px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">According to World Health Organisation, it is expected that all communities have unhindered access to essential medicines and vaccines</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">. However, this is not the case in Nigeria and other developing countries, where lack of Medicines Security is a major challenge to healthcare delivery. Improving local research capacity has been identified as one important strategy to improve access to vaccines</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">. This approach can also help ensure the achievement of local production as well as reduce dependence on the importation of pharmaceutical products, especially those for which local firms have the capacity to produce.</span></p><p id="p0015" style="margin-bottom: 16px; padding: 0px;"><img src="/media/django-summernote/2022-11-11/5f2917d5-6964-4593-805e-fcdf27e62614.png" style="width: 100%;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;"><br></span></p><p id="p0020" style="margin-bottom: 16px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Access to new and effective therapeutics has long been a challenge for Nigeria and other African countries. Manufacturing of pharmaceutical products by developed countries is frequently geared towards profitability, leaving African nations behind.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">&nbsp;Available evidence suggests Africa accounts for only 3% of global pharmaceutical production, and approximately 70 to 90% of pharmaceuticals consumed in the continent are imported.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">&nbsp;Following the COVID-19 pandemic, Nigeria started addressing Medicines Security challenges by providing loans to local pharmaceutical firms to support manufacturing</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">. However, local production of vaccines remains a critical challenge in the country, thereby leaving the nation to rely on the importation of all vaccines consumed in this setting. Because healthcare professionals are important stakeholders when it comes to the utilization of vaccines and other therapeutics, it is of critical importance to assess their views on access to these health commodities. This study therefore aimed at assessing the views of healthcare professionals on challenges and strategies towards improving access to vaccines in Nigeria.</span></p><div><br></div></section><section id="s0010" style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"></section><div id="kg005" class="keywords-section" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></div></div>