ARUA CITY SURPASSES MEASLES RUBELLA VACCINATION TARGET

Dr Mundua Lawrence giving performance report on measles rubella at Arua city before the city stakeholders’ .photo by Asara Charity

By Asara Charity

Arua City

Arua city has surpassed its target in the five day Measles Rubella (MR) mass vaccination campaign, reaching 112% among children aged 9 to 59 months. Out of 64,074 children targeted for vaccination, health workers have vaccinated 78,296 children.

Speaking during the MR vaccination campaign debrief at Arua City council Hall, Dr. Mundua Lawrence who represented Ministry of Health as a supervisor for Arua city attributes the achievement to close collaboration between political leaders and health workers, particularly in mobilizing communities to take their children for vaccination.

Dr. Mundua has also directed districts that have not achieved the 95% national target to prepare for mop-up exercise to reach children who may have been missed during the campaign. “It’s the good political support we had which has culminated in to the good result of Arua city”, Dr Mundua said

Meanwhile Ofuti William the environmental health officer in charge of maternal child health noted that out of 9 former administrative units, only 7 were able to receive facilitation which affected the effective immunization coverage in some of the areas.

On the other hand Candia Joel the clinical officer at Oreku health centre III says  the facility has been locked for five days attributing it to the few number of health workers during the mass vaccination.

“The facility was completely closed in the five days of the implementation of this MR vaccination which affected the other communities in terms of treatment “, Candia said

Dratibi Jackson the deputy mayor for Arua city appreciates the health workers for the great work. “We are responsible for the health of our people and if in such exercise we score above average we are doing our best”, Dratibi said

As part of the consignments, Arua City received 695,000 doses of measles rubella vaccines of which 461,090 were used by the health worker during the five days mass vaccination leaving a balance of 233,910, doses.

Written by newsroom-radiopacis