Taraba State, for the first time in history has witnessed the highest record of measles rubella integrated vaccination beyond its targets.
Dr. Tijo Kenneth Dingeh, the Director Immunization Disease Control, at the Taraba State Primary Healthcare Development Agency (TSPHCDA), stated this in an interview with LEADERSHIP in Jalingo.
Dr. Dingeh, who attributed the successes to the massive mobilization and sensitization campaigns to all stakeholders‘, noted how caregivers and organizations were calling for children to be vaccinated.
While commending the state government for according the agency all the needed support, the IDC Director pledged the commitment of the agency to sustain the tempo.
“For us as an agency, the level of compliance in the recent exercise has been remarkable and very impressive.
“This is the first time we are seeing acceptability at its highest in the state, where you have a caregiver calling our team to give their wards vaccination.
“During this campaign, we have seen schools and worship places looking for us to come and vaccinate eligible children. It has not happened before and is evidenced by us vaccinating way above our target.
“For the measles, we vaccinated over 1.7 million eligible children in Taraba state. For human papilloma varus, we are able to vaccinate over 15,000 eligible target groups and also, for polio we have vaccinated over nine hundred thousand during the campaign, and our target was less than that,” Dr. Dingeh recounted.
He noted that, the agency was constrained to go beyond its record, because the vaccines at a point got finished, a development that was not peculiar to Taraba state.
“This is just to show how good the level of compliance was during the campaign.”
The IDC Director, then expressed happiness for the support received, saying “with the well trained personnel on ground, we are not expecting less in the next campaign schedule for 1st December. We will sustain the tempo,” he added.
