...mobilise community, religious leaders, stakeholders, others

By Peter Duru, Makurdi

Benue State has commenced the mobilisation of traditional, religious and community leaders as well as stakeholders and groups ahead of the forthcoming second round of the ‘Big Catch-Up’, BCU, to ensure children of zero to five years in 12 Local Government Areas, LGAs, of the state are fully immunised during the exercise.

Addressing the town hall meeting in Makurdi, the Executive Secretary of the Benue State Primary Health Care Board, BSPHCB, Mrs. Grace Wende urged participants to move to the communities in the 12 LGAs of Ado, Buruku, Guma, Gwer East, Katsina-Ala, Konshisha, Kwande, Logo, Okpokwu, Ushongo, Ukum and Vandeikya where the exercise would be carried out and mobilise the people.

She said “it is important that we ensure that the people in our communities are well informed about the exercise and the importance of having our children immunised during the exercise.

“So with this meeting we want to be certain that at the commencement of the activity we will not miss any child at all. You are the ambassadors of immunization in the communities. Ensure that when we commence we will record the desired result and we will all be happy that we were part of the success story.”

Speaking on he objective of the meeting, the State Health Educator, BSPHCB, Mr. Emmanuel Beeka said it was intended to inform the gathering that after the first round of the exercise last December, the second round which would commence soon should be accorded priority attention in order to have children of zero to five years immunised against childhood diseases.

“The essence is to ensure that our children who were partially immunised are reached and, there are other children too who have never been immunised at all. It is expected that all the children will receive all the disease preventing vaccines so that they will be fully protected.”

“Some people out there who do not believe that their children should be immunised must be made to realise the importance of having their children immunised. Tell the people the importance of this exercise. We cannot afford to leave any child behind, all our children must be fully vaccinated.”

The UNICEF BCU State Facilitator, Dorcas Omachoko who noted the importance of the exercise said “during the exercise we will be covering 144 Council Wards in 12 LGAs and we are all going to work hard to reach all the children in the targeted communities of the state to improve on what we had achieved in the past.”

Also, the State Immunisation Officer, SIO, Emmanuel Adega who harped on the importance of the exercise pointed out that “the first round which was conducted last December targeted 210,503 children and we reached over 177,000, a coverage of about 80 percent.

“It is an intensified exercise that will reach children in security compromised areas, those missed during the COVID-19 outbreak among others. And it is aimed at protecting the children from eight vaccine preventable diseases so we want all hands to be on deck and we will be moving from house to house to ensure that we surpass our target.”

In her contribution, the President, Federation of Muslim Women Association in Nigeria (FOMWAN), Jamila iliyasu lauded the BSPHCB for organising the town hall meeting assuring that the association would lend its support and take the massage to its members to ensure the success of the exercise.