By Bashir Hassan Abubakar
In a renewed effort to immunize all eligible children against preventable child killer diseases in Plateau State, the State Government in partnership with UNICEF and other partners have embarked on massive immunization campaign to reach all eligible children especially in some LGAs where, records indicates the prevalence of zero dose children.
The ongoing immunization campaign is witnessing massive turnout of parents availing themselves the opportunity offered by the campaign to take their children to vaccination points where service providers administers vaccines like penta and ROTA to eligible children.
Our correspondent who monitored the exercise in DU Ward of Jos South LGA saw some teams at designate spots administering the vaccine to children.
The Immunization campaign tagged “Big Catch up Immunization” is aimed at reaching targeted children that had not had any form of Immunization since birth (zero dose children) and those that were not up to date with their routine immunization.
Speaking at the flag off of the “Big Catch up Immunization Campaign” held in Zawan Community, by the wife of Jos South LGA Mrs. Mercy Silas Patrick said that the challenge on zero dose calls for a collaborative between State, LGA, Communities and partners.
Mrs. Patrick said that the “Big Catch up Immunization Campaign” was specifically designed to correct the gaps in immunization coverage, so that child is left unprotected from all preventable child killer diseases in the LGA and Plateau State at large.
While calling on parents to avail themselves the opportunity offered by the immunization campaign, the wife of the chairman also urged them to imbibe culture of exclusive breastfeeding and local nutritional complementary feeding for the health and development of their children.
Our correspondent who went round some of the communities in Jos South LGA saw vaccination teams administering the Oral vaccine to eligible children.
Rahila Pam, a mother of 4 revealed that all her children have taken the vaccine, emphasising that, even those that missed it due to one or the other she takes them to the closest health to make up for the missed dose.
Mrs. Pam lamented that there are still some parents that have lukewarm attitude about the immunization.
“I have taken upon me to sensitize parents on the importance of taking the vaccines, using my children as models to showcase the efficacy of the vaccines”, Mrs. Pam said.
Also sharing her field experience, a community mobilizer in one of the teams in Mai’adiko community, Safiya Ibrahim said that, “though there are still challenges with acceptability is some households, our continues mobilization and one-on-one engagement with caregivers is changing some of these attitudes”.
Our Correspondent reports that the second round big catch immunization campaign is continuing until the 18th of February, 2025.