By Bashir Hassan
The ongoing Measles Integrated Campaign is recording an appreciable level of success in Bauchi Metropolis.
Our Correspondent, who was part of a select group of Journalists that went round some of the Primary Health Care Centres on Day Three of the exercise, observed impressive turnout of caregivers who were availing themselves the opportunity provided by the Measles Immunization campaign to vaccinate their eligible children.
Maryam Auwal, the mother of a newborn baby said that the campaign was timely for her newborn baby because she had not had any form of vaccination. She said she was at the facility to commence the series of immunization including that of measles for her baby.
At the Miri PHCC, a mother of Six, Ummi Ibrahim, who brought her less than 2 years baby girl to access the immunization services, disclosed that, though her last three children had not missed their routine immunization, her first three children had not had their complete doses of immunization and that the health status of the first three children is not as sound as that of the last three.
She attributed the change of attitude regarding accessing Immunization to the house to house awareness creation being carried out by Volunteer Community Mobilizers (VCMs) in their community.
While sharing his thoughts on the ongoing Measles Integrated Immunization Campaign, the Ward Focal Person of Miri, Umar Abdullahi Ningi, said that the successes being recorded can also be attributed to the integrated nature of the campaign.
“There were outbreaks of Measles in the State and this has been worrying parents. So, when the campaign commences, parents bring along their children for the Immunization and in the process, other immunization vaccines like that of polio and other routine immunizations were administered too”, said Ningi.
Another immunization service provider at the Bayan Fada PHCC Halima Adamu, also shared her experience at the ongoing campaign saying, “the turnout here is quite encouraging as you can see for yourself. I have been comparing notes with some of my counterparts in other PHCs across the State, and the response to the campaign at the PHC level has been the same with them too. What is even more heartwarming is the involvement of male caregivers that escorts their spouses and in some cases they are the ones that were actually bringing their children for the Immunization”.
While sharing his field experience in mobilizing communities in the ongoing campaign, a supervisor of VCMs at Dan Amar A Ward, Yahuza Haruna, said that mobilization has hugely contributed to the success of the campaign in the Ward.
He however pointed out that, there is the need to sustain the tempo in subsequent campaigns and to commence mobilization much early.
Our correspondent reports that, though the Immunization campaign is recording an appreciable level of success, the challenge associated with high costs of transportation and other logistics demands is affecting the performance of teams in reaching all the nooks and crannies of communities.
