The State Primary Health Care Board, or SPHCB, will conduct a week-long Supplementary Immunization Activity (SIA) aimed at immunizing around 1.2 million Benue children against the measles.
Targeting children between the ages of nine and fifty-nine months, the exercise would take place across the state’s 277 Health Wards and run from October 26, 2024, to November 1, 2024.
The United Nations Children’s Fund, or UNICEF, organized a One-Day Media Orientation meeting on Thursday. Mrs. Nancy Mkende, the Assistant State Health Educator (ASHE) at the SPHCB, announced that 1,282,340 measles vaccines had been collected statewide.
As per her statement, “the exercise’s targeted population is 1,221,107, and there will be 712 teams participating, each consisting of six members.”
The state was prepared to start the radio jingle production process, according to Benue State Immunization Officer, Mr. Innocent Agega, who also mentioned that “we have already started advocacy visits and we have met the officials of the Ministry of Education for advocacy to schools.” Soon, letters would be issued to the schools to schedule the first round of visits.
The meeting’s main goal, according to Dr. Hilary Ozoh, the UNICEF Social and Behaviour Change Specialist for the Enugu Field Office, was to fortify the organization’s relationship with the media in order to accomplish mass immunization of children against diseases that kill children before they reach childhood.
Declaring that the goal was to reach 95% coverage, he tasked the media with spearheading the public awareness campaign to encourage people to vaccinate their children. “We are aware of the influence the media has on opinion formation and agenda setting, which is why the media is essential to the push to vaccinate our children.”
The World Health Organization (WHO), Yellow Fever, Meningitis, Measles, and Technical Officer The potency and preservation of the vaccinations to be utilized in the exercise were guaranteed by Dr. Ndubuisi Ebita, a Camapiagn from Enugu State. He further stated, “The vaccines will be carried in ice packs and after six hours of opening any of the vaccines it is discarded whether used or not.”
“An integrated workout will also take place during that time. This implies that in addition to the measles vaccine, the vaccinators will also bring other vaccines so that children in any community who are found to be unvaccinated against other diseases would receive vaccinations.
“The media is an important tool for positive behavioural change, so we urge you to help mobilise the people to embrace the exercise,” stated Dr. Ifenyiwa Ani-Osheku, Executive Secretary of the Enugu State Primary Health Care Development Agency, in reference to the crucial role the media must play in ensuring a successful exercise.
In her speech, Dr. Chinyere Chime, the SIO for Enugu State, stated that the 2024 Integrated SIAs will be essential to lowering vaccine-preventable diseases in Nigeria.
“It is imperative that vaccinations take place prior to outbreak seasons,” she stated. In order to connect missing children to the system and reach them, routine immunization needs to be reinforced on a regular basis. SIAs offer this opportunity.
“It is imperative that we take advantage of this campaign to stop the circulating vaccine-derived polio virus, or cPVP type 2, and to achieve our 95% measles coverage target. Only then will we be able to introduce measles and rubella, or MR, into routine immunization, or RI, starting in 2025, and put an end to yellow fever epidemics.”
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