From Geoffrey Anyanwu, Enugu
The Federal Government, yesterday, lamented that the five states of the South East zone were lagging behind in COVID-19 vaccination despite doing exceptionally well in other routine immunisations, like children vaccination.
It cautioned Executive Secretaries of the State Primary Health Care Development Agencies (PHCDA) in the zone to stop sidelining the ministries of health in the five states in activities that concern COVID-19 vaccination and childhood immunisation.
Expressing dismay during the South East Zone Primary Health Care and COVID-19 Vaccination Review Meeting in Enugu, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr. Faisal Shuaib said the South East was projected to vaccinate about 100, 000 persons per day, but had an abysmal turnout of about 6,000 vaccinated persons per day.
Shuaib said apart from the disinformation about the COVID-19 vaccination in the region, the infighting between the executive secretaries of state Primary Health Care Development Agencies in the zone and their health commissioners over the disbursement of funds sent from the NPHCDA was causing major setback for the programme.
“Executive secretaries must work with commissioners to improve COVID-19 vaccination and routine immunisation. The infighting between commissioners and executive secretaries is not helping the programme.”
Shuaib urged the people of region to rise up and show leadership in COVID-19 vaccination like they had always done in such issues like childhood immunisation and other preventable vaccinations.
“South East is one of the zones that does exceptionally well when it comes to routine immunization, which we also call childhood vaccination. But it’s not the case with COVID-19 vaccination. We understand that Igbo are literate enough to understand that vaccination is protective.
“But we also know that because of the permeation of the social media, especially in the South East where there’s a high rate of literacy, people look at the information going on in the social media and get distracted.
“I know how COVID-19 has had a negative impact on the commerce and economic activities in the South East. Today, we take determined steps on how we can overcome those barriers so that not only will we be able to achieve health immunity in the Southeast, we will then be able to exit this pandemic so that all of the commerce and vibrant economic activities that take place in the South East will now go back to normal so that we will begin to ask what is it that we did differently than led to this success.
Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, who was represented by his deputy, Mrs. Cecelia Ezeilo, expressed optimism that with the review programme, South East would improve in COVID-19 vaccination.
He urged the PHCDA executive secretaries in the zone to take the message to traditional rulers so as to educate their subjects to come out for vaccination.
Chairman, Senate Committee on Primary Health Care and Communicable Diseases, Chukwuka Utazi, appealed to the people of the zone to brace up and ask themselves questions about the vaccination.