Stephen Ukandu, Umuahia
UNICEF and WHO in partnership with Abia State Government, have commenced vaccination of un-immunised children in the state against killer diseases.
According to the Ministry of Health, no fewer than 111,000 children in Abia State are un-immunised.
The vaccination exercise tagged Big Catch Up, which commenced on December 9, is against five killer diseases including polio, diphtheria, hepatitis B, pneumonia and tetanus.
Abia State Immunisation Officer, Mrs Chinwe Eke, who confirmed this to newsmen in Umuahia, said six Local Government Areas had the highest number of un-immunised children in the state.
The LGAs according to her include: Aba South – 29,448; Ohafia LGA -17,382; Obingwa -18670; Arochukwu 18,333; Osisioma – 16,837; and Umunneochi 10,339.
Speaking on the successes of the exercise, Mrs Eke, however, noted that only 30% of the target was covered as at Sunday.
She said a mop-up exercise was conducted after the end of the exercise to get more children vaccinated, adding that the uncovered gap will be bridged in the remaining exercises scheduled for January and February 2025 respectively.
Mrs Eke explained that the Big-Catch-Up vaccination was designed to reach out to children that missed their routine immunisation as a result of disruptions arising from COVID-19 pandemic.
According to her, the programme is a global mandate to ensure that every child who missed in the previous vaccinations is covered.
She added: “You know that during COVID 19, a lot of children missed their routine immunisation. So, we are on this exercise to catch up with those children missed during these years.”
According to her, the exercise is for children from 24 months to five years.
“When the national looked at our data, it was found that 111,000 have not received any of our antigens since birth.”
The State Immunisation Officer commended UNICEF and the WHO for their supports to the programme.
“We are grateful to UNICEF which is providing the logistics support; and WHO that takes care of stipends to our facilitators and field workers.”
She equally thanked Governor Alex Otti for his strong support to the State PHCs which she said, had enabled the state to win global recognition.
Recall that Abia recently won UNICEF grant of $400,000 for impressive performance in PHCs.
“Our Governor has meaningfully supported every of our programmes since he came on board, and that is the secret of our success story,” she said.
