Immunization: Positive Reactions Trail Exercise

As the first round of the 2018 National Immunization and Oral Polio Vaccination exercise commenced throughout the State of Osun, residents and stakeholders have come out to publicly commend the state government, under the administration of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola.

In an interview with this medium, residents who were mostly parents praised the administration of Ogbeni Aregbesola for being a people oriented government which always put the well being of the citizenry on the front burner.

They were of the opinion that since the inception of this administration on 27th October, 2010 in the state, its health sector participation has grown appreciably.

A visit to many parts of the state capital during the weekend like Ogo-Oluwa, Jaleyemi, Isale-Aro, Odi-Olowo, Awosuru, Gbodofon, Asubiaro, Capital, Akindeko, Sabo all in Osogbo local government and parts of Igbona, Mallam Tope, Ajegunle in Olorunda local government area of the state revealed that the level of co-operation between parents and vaccinators was high.

Some of the vaccinators also expressed satisfaction for the successes so far recorded as the exercise commenced.

According to them, the resistance experienced in time past was slowly reducing and a majority of the parents now freely bring their children out for vaccination.

They noted that the level of co-operation has increased considerably and people have grown used to seeing vaccinators coming to immunize their children year in and year out which has boosted the confidence of the parents.

Notwithstanding the success, the vaccinators also used the opportunity to appeal to the relevant agencies to ensure that the reward package for the services they were rendering is paid adequately, on time and at the right amount.

They revealed that they were aware that their services should be seen as one to humanity which cannot be quantified financially but that they should be adequately encouraged so that whenever the call to duty arises, they will be glad to rise to the occasion.

A concerned parent said: “It has become imperative that sensitization is a key to the success of this type of programme. Before the commencement of this round of immunization, communication was very poor compared to earlier excercise but we were hearing that such an exercise was about to begin and we were not surprised to see them going about today immunizing our children.

“We must build a wall of immunity to fully protect the Nigerian child from the polio virus, which can only be achieved through multiple doses of oral polio vaccines”, she stressed.

The immunization programme which is compulsory is targeted at immunizing children from ages 0 to 59 months with two drops of the oral polio vaccine regardless of previous immunization status and it is absolutely necessary that children get repeated immunization to fully protect them against polio.