The Director, FCT Primary Health Care Board, Dr Ruqayya Wamakko has identified partial child immunisation by mothers as a public health problem affecting successful children immunisation in Abuja.
Wamakko made this remark in an interview on Wednesday in Abuja.
She said that many mothers, who usually take their child for their first immunisation often fail to remember the next appointment date.
She said that inadequate levels of immunisation against childhood diseases remain a significant public health problem in FCT.
According to her, most mothers after taking Bacillus Calmette Guerin (BCG), oral polio vaccination and others for their children don’t do further follow-ups again.
“The challenge is that for the women in the community to remember the next appointment or come back for the follow-up, is always difficult.
“It is a great challenge for us here in the FCT.
“On the other hand, some mothers will come much more after the appointment date had been long overdue, while some don’t find it important to come back after the first dose,” Wamakko said.
She said that vaccination was a way of creating immunity for protection against some diseases.
The director hinted that the government was putting so many efforts into immunisation to ensure Nigerians are free from polio.
Nigeria, she said, was able to achieve this and was declared free from the disease by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
She also identified data collation as part of the challenge facing routine immunisation in FCT, adding that there was always a mistake when reconciling data from field exercise.
She said that healthcare workers gathered data from the field exercise hurriedly instead of using the roaster directives, and also forget to put data from the field in the appropriate place.
Wamakko said that getting accurate data on the number of vaccination in the healthcare facility and on the field was a serious challenge.
She noted that equipment like a saver, use in sending data on the number of immunised children to the area council “always give problem as a result network challenge.”
The director remarked that immunisation was the cheapest and most effective remedy against vaccine-preventable infections (VPI).
“Therefore, mothers must not deny their children of the opportunity.”
According to her, each healthcare facilities in the FCT has its days of immunisation.