Measles: UNICEF to vaccinate 3.8million children – Official

 

By Idris Ayinde

Mr Patrick Akor, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Bauchi Field Office’s Health Officer, says that no fewer than 3.8 million children would be vaccinated against measles across four Northern states.

Akor, who stated this in a news conference in Bauchi on Friday, said the vaccination exercise would commence on Saturday and would last for seven days.

He highlighted the four Northern states where the integrated measles campaign would take place to include; Plateau, Bauchi, Gombe and Adamawa.

“For the measles campaign, we have a target of 3.8million children from nine months to 59 months which we are targeting across the four states.

“We have received in all the states a total of over 4 million doses of measles vaccines which have been supplied across the four states,” he said.

According to the Health Officer, UNICEF is also going to launch an oral vaccination campaign against polio across five Northern states.

He said “For the oral polio vaccination, we have a target of 6.8million children that we are going to reach from zero to 59 months which is less than five years across five states of Taraba, Plateau, Bauchi, Gombe and Adamawa.

“The total number of vaccines that have already gotten to them is 7.4 million doses across these five states.

“We are looking at it that no child should be left behind, all children of an eligible age group should be reached and be vaccinated”.

Akor urged all the media practitioners across the states to help in disseminating the message across to the general public especially, people at the grassroot areas.

Also, Mr George Eki, Social Behavioural Change Specialist, UNICEF Bauchi Field Office, said it became imperative for UNICEF to support the Nigerian government in protecting children against measles and other vaccine preventable diseases.

He explained that for the last couple of months, UNICEF Bauchi Field Office, alongside with other partners have been working with the government right from the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency and to the state agencies to ensure that different aspects of the campaign are covered.

“There is logistic support we provide to the state. We made vaccines available across the states for the campaign, there are also commodities that are also made available through the support of UNICEF.

“The cold chain system that supports cooling and storage of vaccines has also been provided by UNICEF.

“More importantly, the advocacy, communication and social mobilisation is sorely the UNICEF mandate in this exercise where we are providing support to all the states to ensure that people get to know when this campaign is going to happen.

“Through this, people also get to know the age bracket of children that are eligible for this vaccination as well as where to go or how to receive this vaccine,” he said.

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