The Anambra State Government has announced that the first round of July, 2019 National Immunization Plus Days (NIPDs) will commence tomorrow.
The programme which would be run by the Anambra State Primary Healthcare Development Agency in collaboration with partner bodies including the World Health Organization, WHO, and the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, shall be available for children between the ages of zero to fifty-nine months.
Correspondent, Daniel Ezeigwe, was at the Jerome Udorji State Secretariat where the announcement was made to the press, and reports that the July, 2019 first round of the National Immunization Days, will kick off on Saturday 20th and end on Tuesday, 23rd of July, 2019, and will cover areas such as homes, churches, mosques, schools, markets, and other places where children are found.
Announcing this in his office, the Anambra State Commissioner for Health, Dr Vincent Okpala, noted that the house-to-house sweep method was to ensure that every child has the opportunity to get immunized.
Dr Okpala also announced that a new vaccine would be introduced into the immunization schedule from August ninth this year, which would be given to children at nine months of age to protect them from meningitis.
On her part, the Executive Secretary of the Anambra State Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Dr Chioma Ezenyimulu, said that the target was to reach every child in Anambra State, and sustain the fourteen-year-old immunity of the state from poliomyelitis, and other child-killer diseases.
Speaking on behalf of the partner bodies, the Anambra State Coordinator of WHO, Dr Chukwumuanya Igboekwu, said the NIPDs is a very important programme to reach all children, especially those who reside in hard-to-reach areas, adding that there would be a two-day mop-up to get to children who could not be vaccinated in the main phase.The target population of children between zero to fifty-nine months to be vaccinated in Anambra State in the period is one million, one hundred and ninety-seven thousand, six hundred and forty-four, while the target population of children less than one year to be vaccinated in the same period is two hundred and thirty-nine thousand, five hundred and twenty-nine.
