Socio-economic inequality of childhood routine immunization coverage in Nigeria: analysis of 2003 - 2013 Nigeria demographic and health survey data

Introduction : immunization coverage for Nigeria is still below the 90% target set in the Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP) and Nigeria is one of the 3 countries that host about 50% of the world’s infants without the third dose of Diphtheria, Pertussis and Tetanus (DPT-3) vaccination. Ensuring that routine immunization is equitably extended to all children irrespective of their socio-economic status is a key component of GVAP. We compared the socio-economic inequality of childhood routine immunization coverage in Nigeria from 2003 - 2013. Methods : we analysed data from Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey for 2003, 2008 and 2013 for inequalities of DPT-3 coverage. We used concentration index (CI) to measure socio-economic inequalities at national and sub-national (geopolitical zones) levels. F-statistic was used to test for statistically significant difference in CI across groups at p Results : the CI for DPT-3 coverage in Nigeria was 0.398 in 2003, 0.528 in 2008 and 0.591 in 2013 (p Conclusion : there was an increase in socio-economic inequality of DPT-3 coverage in Nigeria from 2003 - 2013 in favor of those with higher socio-economic status. At the sub-national level, only the North-Eastern and North-Western zones showed an increase in socio-economic inequality of DPT-3 coverage from 2003 - 2013 in favour of those with higher socio-economic status. We recommend that targeted interventions should be introduced to reduce the inequality of immunization coverage in Nigeria particularly in the North-Eastern and North-Western zones of the country.