In a bid to bolster immunity of eligible children, the United Nations Children’s Fund and Ogun State government in collaboration with other partners are set to immunize 1,136952 children from the State during a routine immunization programme scheduled to hold between 5th to 11th October, 2024.
Speaking at a day meeting with newsmen held in Oyo town, in Oyo State, Unicef said all machineries have been put in motion to ensure a smooth takeoff of the programme.
The immunization which is for Children is to fight against some killer diseases such as Polio, measles and others.
In order to garner maximum support from the people and parents in particular, the media practitioners who are from South West and Edo States were charged to enlighten the populace and dispell every misinformation against the exercise.
Speaking during the one day meeting, Aderonke Akinola-Akinwole, UNICEF’s Social and Behavioural Change Specialist (SBCS) charged participants to continue to enlighten members of the public on the relevance of immunization, saying taking it will eradicate diseases like Polio, measles and HPV among others.
According to her, the meeting was to enlighten parents that the vaccines are safe and free for the children.
“We are hopeful that this campaign will be very successful, however, we also envisaged that there might be rejection and non-compliance from parents to allow their children to be vaccinated.
“We want to assure parents that the vaccines are safe and it is just to increase the immunity of children against measles which is a deadly disease and causes mortality.
“We want them to accept the vaccines for the children because it is a healthy child that makes the society. We are all collaborators in progress: it takes a parent to give birth to a child, but it takes a community and villages to raise a child. We have a responsibility at ensuring that children are safe from vaccines preventable diseases and the measles vaccine presented to us is an opportunity to keep our children healthy from measles.
“We all have a role to play in collaborating with the government to reach every child with the vaccine.
She commended the Ogun State government for being a supportive partner in ensuring that children’s rights are protected.
Also speaking, UNICEF Programme Director, Oyo State, Mr. Rotimi Babalola, appealed to media professionals to help in eradicating misinformation and misconception about immunization, especially the measles campaign coming up next week.
Mr. Babalola charged participants to enlighten members of the public on the relevance of immunization saying taking it would eradicate diseases like Polio, HPV among others.
He said the workshop was to strengthen the relationship between Unicef, government and the media and improve the living of the children.
He solicited the cooperation of the media as a critical stakeholder to create an environment where knowledge, attitude and practices within the society.
Some of the representatives of the states at the training said different efforts such as community engagement and media publicity have been put in place to ensure success of the measles campaign.
They explained that the measles immunization is for children between 9 months and 5 years while they rolled out numbers of targeted children.
According to the Ekiti state health education representative, the state is expected to immunize 624,554 children, Ondo state is targeting 919,000 children while Ogun state is targeting 1, 136, 952 children.
