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<\/p>\nKaduna State Primary Health Care Agency (PCHA) had expressed worries over the non- actualization of their set target in the last routine immunization programme. It said that despite the huge resources directed to this campaign, it was a shocking revelation to note that only 30% of its set target was achieved.<\/p>\n
The Deputy Director, PHCA, Dr. Hamza Ikara disclosed this to newsmen while sharing their experiences and challenges during its quarterly review meeting in Kaduna.<\/p>\n
He explained that the reason for the interactive session is to help address factors militating against the success of the program.<\/p>\n
The Agency he said had a set target of 80 percent coverage but ended up with 30 percent outreach, meaning that over 51 percent of the children under the ages of 12-23 months targeted did not receive the routine measles immunization. This condition he described as very worrisome.<\/p>\n
\u201c If it were between 65% or70% and 80, we could say that there were pockets of problems somewhere but 30% compared with 80%, cannot be acceptable. You can see that the performance across the state is far below the national target\u201d.<\/p>\n
Kaduna state he said is one of the worst states in the Northwest in routine immunization \u201cbecause 51 percent of targeted populations are not aware of what we are doing in routine immunization.<\/p>\n
The main reasons given by the caretakers for the incomplete vaccination which has resulted to the failure of the exercise he has attributed to mistrust and fear by the people which are put at 22 percent, Lack of knowledge 51Percent, service delivery related issues 16 percent, family issues 14 percent while other issues accounted for 24 percent.<\/p>\n
In addressing the problems the following machineries were put in place he explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo achieve our set target, we said lets go back to the drawing board and meet with our traditional leaders. This is important because people listen to them. We have the emirs and chiefs; we have district heads, village heads and ward heads. We can establish \u2018Kaduna State Traditional Leaders Committee on Health\u2019. We have 28 chiefdoms and 6 emirates. We have discussed these issues with them and they have agreed to help us. Each ward head is to mobilize children within his own settlement that are \u2018under one\u2019 (0-1yr) for immunization.\u00a0 Harmonize with the person in charge of the facility, find out if the people visit the facility or not.\u00a0 If they are not coming, we look at reasons and find solutions.<\/p>\n
We have also trained over 17,000 workers, 4,000 village heads including 447district heads in order for them to understand what we are doing so that they can assist us in terms of supervision and monitoring of our health facilities\u201d.<\/p>\n
I wish to state that the polio exercise had received commendations. Parents have commended the activities in both Kaduna North and South. They commended the health providers\u2019 efforts for a good job.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of the non-compliance that we are having in the polio immunization exercise is a political non-compliance. Some complained of not having light, our roads are bad as such not interested.<\/p>\n
A call has been made to the state government to beef up security especially within Birnin Gwari, part of Igabi, Chukun in Kachia whereby people could not go out\u00a0 due to fear of being kidnapped which made it difficult to cover some areas.<\/p>\n
Answering question as to the Agency\u2019s relationship with owners of private facilities, Dr. Hamza has this to say.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe had meeting with them. We even signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with them in terms of routine immunization services. We told them that we would give them vaccine, syringes and immunization cards all for free.<\/p>\n
The agreement is that they are going to charge only N500.00 for using the services of their staff and facilities. This charge is for the whole immunization including all the contacts. We are giving them vaccine for free because we want to be sure of the type of vaccine they are giving to our people. These were some of the things we did for them last three months. And we even trained their staff on how to give routine immunization service.<\/p>\n
All these were done to ensure the success of the program. We are encouraging our people to visit these rural facilities because everything there is free.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have 1,168 health facilities that are proving routine immunization services across the 23 LGs of the state. Before, all the LGAs use to collect their vaccines at the state level which caused a lot of hardship to the women in the rural areas who would have to stay longer than necessary for the vaccine. For almost a year now, the primary health care agency is the one taking the vaccines to all the LGAs. So, no any LGA would complain that it has no vaccine in their respective facilities. Vaccines are readily available.\u201d He said<\/p>\n
The issue of private facilities charging N500 for immunization he said with time would be put to rest because since everything is given to them free, they are supposed to render their support to the well – being of the children too.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite the fact that they are profit oriented, they have to give back to the society at the same time. It is their responsibility to give those within their facilities services free.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Haliburton and Dangote Foundation have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Kaduna state government to support provision of the vaccine within four years. In the first year, these partners would contribute 75 percent counterpart funding while the state government will contribute 50 percent.<\/p>\n
In the second year, both the two partners and state government would contribute 50 percent each, in the third year, the partners would contribute 25 percent while state government would contribute 75 percent while the state government would bear the whole financial responsibility in the fourth year.<\/p>\n
The 30% score by the external body for last year\u2019s measles routine immunization service the PHCA see as a wake- up call. All hands must be on deck to make the 80% target a reality.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe said we had 95% but when the service of independent body was employed to assess what we have done, it was only 30%. There is the need therefore to strengthen our collaboration with the media and other stakeholders so as to attain the required target in the next exercise. We are calling on the media to assist us in taking the awareness program to the grass root in order to help educate and disabuse the minds of the people regarding some of the militating factors such as traditions and myths.<\/p>\n
If we do our routine immunization rightly, there would be no need for supplementary exercise. Nigeria is getting to 2yrs now that is free of polio. If by a year we do not record any case, we would be deleted from the list of countries with polio.\u00a0 \u201d He concluded.<\/p>\n
In her contribution, a representative of the UNICEF Niwot Getachew, who listened with rap attention to the review of the exercise by the agency and the flow of ideas that permeated the floor between the agency and members of the media said, strengthening of collaboration with all the stakeholders is a necessity if the program\u00a0 must excel.<\/p>\n
The interactive session ended with lots of promises of hard work to take Kaduna state to a greater height.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PHCA, UNICEF SEEKS MEDIA COLLABORATION TO SCALE UP IMMUNIZATION EXERCISE \u2026\u202680% target routine immunization in Kaduna state not actualized as 51% targeted children not accessed Zainab Tanimu—-Kaduna, NIGERIA Kaduna State Primary Health Care Agency (PCHA) had expressed worries over the non- actualization of their set target in the last routine immunization programme. It said that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":371,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"yoast_head":"\n