Delta to vaccinate children in riverine communities

In order to ensure the wellbeing of children below five years, the Delta State Commissioner for Health, Nicholas Azinge, has restated government’s commitment to cover the routine Vaccination Programme.

Azinge made the assertion in Asaba yesterday during a visit of the Missed Opportunity for Vaccination, Africa Regional Office of the World Health Organisation (WHO) team to his office.

He said the programme would ensure that children are adequately vaccinated, especially in the riverine communities that had been denied assess due to the difficulties in reaching them.

He said the affected communities were mainly in Burutu, Ndokwa West, Ethiope East and Isoko South local councils of the state, adding that they accounted for the poor rating of the state in the nationwide vaccination exercises.

While reiterating the successes achieved in the Saving-One-Million-Lives (SOML) and Primary Health Care Under One Roof (PHCUOR) initiatives, Azinge assured the team that the successes would be replicated in the vaccination exercises in order to achieve the desired goal.

Executive Director, State Primary Health Care Development Agency (PHCDA), Jude Winful-Orieke, noted that the team had been on the field for three days and that its findings would be made available to him.

He assured that the processes of addressing lack of budget for routine immunisation had been initiated and was hopeful that it would be approved in the 2018 budget.

Orieke added that the issues raised by the team from their field observation on staff attitude would be addressed by the agency.

Earlier, National Immunisation Officer, Sambo Ishaku and WHO thanked Azinge for his efforts and achievements in the state’s health sector.

Ishaku said the Missed Opportunity for Vaccination Team was in the Commissioner’s office as part of their assessment tour of the state’s Vaccination Programme.

He said that one of the team’s aim was to reduce the number of unimmunised children in the country as Nigeria accounted for 4.3 million of the 18 million unreached children globally, adding that the situation had been declared an issue of public health concern with 18 months’ period to address it.

The Missed Opportunity for Vaccination Assessor, African Regional Office of WHO, Prof. Joseph Okeibunor, said the visit was to afford them the opportunity to make a preliminary presentation of results on issues encountered during their vaccination assessment tour of the state.