In Akwa Ibom State, particularly in Uyo metropolis, it was one huddle after another recently when health officials went on a house to house immunization campaign in the state. Reason: big shots weren’t taking chances, being afraid that kidnappers might as well put on immunization aprons to gain access into their homes for their evil mandate.
While Akwa Ibom is one of the states that have ensured the absence of wild polio virus, the officials are lamenting that the high rate of kidnapping in the state is threatening their efforts as people are now scared too open their doors to unknown persons.
Daily Sun was in Akwa Ibom to monitor the Immunization Plus Days (IPDs) last month. Although the level of non-compliance was said to have remained very low with high successes, officials felt that they could cover more grounds during the national campaign if they did not have to grapple with the problem of access to their targeted population following the high level of insecurity.
Local Immunization Officer (LIO) for Uyo Local Government Area, Esther Christopher Ibia, told Daily Sun that although they were not deterred by this mindset of the people, they were, however, unhappy and uncomfortable with this development because it was hampering their efforts.
Stressing that this was a big barrier, she said despite the serious awareness created both in the media and through the town criers prior to the exercise, the people were still afraid that evil men could take advantage of their announcements and also wear their aprons to commit all sort of atrocities.
“In Ewet Housing, we have a big challenge there. It is not a question of not immunizing their children but you will see a compound with this big fence, big gate and then you’ll knock and they are not ready to respond to you,” she said, even as she described the present time as kidnapping era.
According to her, “people are very careful. And so I may not really say that they don’t comply but because you don’t know who is who. Anybody can wear apron and say I want to immunize your child and do some other funny things. In that Ewet housing, we have low turn outs but we create time on Saturday and Sunday.
“Actually there may not be reported cases that oh, I went to this place, but there is this attitude that you go to somebody’s house and knock especially where there is a gate and then somebody will just peep and does not know you and you say look, I want to give immunization to your children. You know that funny things are happening; people are going to people’s houses in the name of I am this, I’m that and then before you know it, it is another story.
“And so people are still scared. Even though we make announcement, there is jingle on air, people are coming around to give immunization OPV to children 0 to 59 months you know that other people too can also use that opportunity to do other activities. So you may not really, really blame them for not opening their doors. The only thing we need to do is to go early at the time when the caregivers would be at home. If this scenario was not on ground, it would have helped us a lot. I can’t say that it would have been hundred per cent after all before this time, you’d still see these high fences with dogs that they don’t permit you to go in but it is this other issue that has overwhelmed the other aspect of it. It is a very big barrier.
“If we want to go and do a separate announcement that, okay people in Ewet Housing, please we will come this time, the same people that we are trying to run away from will still hear this announcement and can still use that opportunity to, you know… And so, we don’t have any alternative than we go in there, immunize, for those ones we cannot have access to, we try it in the evening, then we try it on Sunday. We asked the vaccinators, the moving team, they should do what they can. For those places that they cannot, they can just give us a call and we will go there to see how to resolve it,” the LIO stated.
Apart from the challenge of shut gates, there were the usual complaint of too many rounds, as the people expressed worries that it may have adverse effect, but Ibia said they did not relent in sensitizing them ahead of the exercise that there is no adverse effect.
“When it comes to OPV, a child can take as many times as we have the national programme. All what we want is to make sure that we don’t have polio virus in Akwa Ibom state and we thank God that we don’t record any. We are trying so much to make sure that Akwa Ibom state remains a polio free state,” she said.
Ibia said that it was a wise strategy to use people from a community to administer the Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) during the exercise in that community, stating that those people would know where to see the children and their people also have the confidence in them that they would not harm them. She said this strategy had helped them to achieve successes in the villages.
To ensure adequate coverage in the state, children were immunized in churches on Sunday and in the schools during the school hours by the house to house teams. Equally, people voluntarily went to the fixed posts in some churches, schools and primary health care facilities to immunize their children.
Mrs. Ubong-Abasi Victor is the Director, Primary Health Care in Uyo Local Government Area. Before now, she was in Uruan LGA and she shared her experience of the campaign in Uruan with Daily Sun. She said there are some hard-to-reach areas in Uruan, where in some cases the teams would have to travel in speed boats and stay there for the four days of the campaign before crossing back to their various homes. Uyo is not left out as it also has a few hard-to-reach areas.
Thus, she emphasized the need for an increased funding for the campaign in the state, as well as the provision for vehicles that could penetrate those difficult terrenes.
“Logistics should be addressed in the exercise. Toyota Hillux vans should be put in place to go to hard terrenes. There are several hard to reach areas. We need money in all the LGAs to take more teams to be able to cover the areas. Uyo especially needs to increase the number of teams,” she stated.
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