By Asma’u Ahmad
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has commended parents in Borno state for their massive turnout for anti-measles vaccination campaign in the state.
UNICEF Vaccine, Security and Logistics Officer, Malam Haruna Adamu made the commendation while briefing newsmen shortly after a tour of some vaccination points in Maiduguri.
Malam Adamu attributed the large turnout to the enlightenment campaign at the grassroots by UNICEF.
“It is really encouraging to observe massive turnout of parents at vaccination points, especially in Internally Displaced Persons’ (IDP) camps in Maiduguri. This is appreciative because UNICEF was involved in massive mobilisation.
“We actually played vital role in mobilising members of the community for the event. UNICEF also did some work in creating awareness among parents for the campaign, and it paid off,” he said.
He said the campaign was initiated to tackle rising cases of measles outbreak in the state. “The campaign was initiated, looking at the rising cases of measles infection among children in the state,” Adamu said.
He said the age group of children for the vaccination was adjusted for better outreach. “The vaccine was supposed to be administered on children aged between nine and 29 months. But we expanded the scope to include children above 29 months, due to the Boko Haram insurgency that affected the state.”
The UNICEF official said the insurgency in the state had prevented UNICEF from reaching many children in previous vaccination, especially in communities liberated from the insurgents.
He said most of the children are now in the age bracket of between 10 and above; so, we decided to expand the scope of the coverage to take care of them, adding that the targeted population of about one million children had been raised to 3.1 million, due to the age adjustment.
