United Nations Child and Education Fund (UNICEF) in collaboration with National Orientation Agency called on parents and guardians for the retention of immunization card issued to their children during routine vaccination to safeguard health of the younger children.
The concern was made during a one day media dialogue with stakeholders from Kano, JIgawa and Katsina states on immunizations card retention.
During the dialogue ,Kano the State Mobilization Officer, State Primary Health-care Management Board, Ado Sanda pointed out the important of safe keeping of child immunization cards.
“is very important in providing accurate and reliable data on total immunized children, missed children and how to strategically plan for full coverage and tackling diseases outbreak.”
“Based on the survey conducted in Kano State the card retention is below 40 percent, this means it is not possible to track and find the actual number of children immunized and those not immunized in a particular community.”
In his presentation, the UNICEF representative and Specialist for Behavior Change, Ogu Sunday Enemaku said that, the media has a role to play in changing the perception and attitude of people towards immunization card retention.
“Media is expected to embark on public enlightenment and awareness on the importance of keeping the card for generating data that can help policymakers and partners to come up with a realistic plan that could help in tackling the high rate of child mortality in the society. Why “Vaccination is the most safest way to the prevention of communicable diseases. Therefore communities at the grassroots must be properly enlightened on safe keeping of their immunization cards, as preservation of such cards count a lot in different formats such as national planning purposes, among other topical issues related to health development in attainment of quality health services for improved living condition”
He assured that UNICEF has designed different programmes with meaningful focus on the advancement of populace of under developed nation including Nigeria.
One Day Media Dialogue with Health experts from Kano Katsina and jigawa state’s Organized by the Kano field office of UNICEF in collaboration with the National Orientation Agency Kano (NOA)
