Plateau PHC Director Attributes Record Of Zero Dose Immunization To Insecurity

By Samuel Luka, Bauchi

The Plateau State Primary Health Care Development Board (PSPHCD) has linked the zero dose immunization recorded in four local government areas of the state to unending insecurity.

Dr. Yakubu Dauda Izang, Director of Disease Control and Immunisation at the Board disclosed this while speaking in Jos South on Wednesday during the flag off of the Big Catch up Immunization Campaign with support from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Dr. Izang who stated that the Zero dose children are common in Wase, Kanam, Shendam and Qua-an Pan LGAs, commended the UNICEF and other partners for collaborating with the Board to address the Zero dose challenge through the ongoing Big Catch up Immunization campaign.

Dr. Izang further stressed that Plateau State has been recording improvement, with parents submitting their wards for immunisation following the efforts of the government to stem the issues of insecurity.

He added that the rate of zero dose was on the high side which resulted to getting Plateau state marked as a ‘Zero Dose State’ –accounting for the high rate of children who have never received immunisation in their lifetime.

Dr. Izang who disclosed that the four local government areas have witnessed series of attacks, reasoned that people in such situation might not access healthcare services, especially immunisation.

The Director Disease control said: “most of them were displaced. Secondly, there was a shortage of manpower, but I am very certain His Excellency is prioritising that. Very soon, there will be employment of frontline health workers to carry on with the job.”

In her remarks, the Director, Primary Healthcare (PHC) Jos South LGA, Lynda Chuwang said that, “Big Catch up Immunization campaign is good concept which is really catching up with the Zero Dose children in the area.”

She however said all the children that had missed immunization from the beginning are now being reached considering the importance of immunization, adding that the big catch up campaign has really helped a lot.

According to her, “this morning I went round to the communities for supervision before I came here. I met a mother that had earlier refused to bring her children for the immunization but when we spoke to her, she understood the negative effect on her children a decided to bring them”.

“If we had not gone out, and if not for the big catch up Immunization exercise, we would not have got her and the child would have missed out. So, it is very very important and it has given us the opportunity to go into the communities and fish out those children that for one reason or the other missed the earlier stages of immunization”, she said.