Agency Seeks Active support for Routine Immunisation Activities in Kogi

kogiflame.com

The National Emergency Routine Immunisation Coordination Centre (NERICC), has appealed to Kogi Government to actively support the routine immunisation activities in the state.

Dr Daniel Ali, a Routine Immunisation Officer at NERICC, made the call while speaking to newsman after an advocacy meeting with the Chief of Staff to Kogi Government, Mr Edward Onoja, in Lokoja.

According to Ali, the centre was established two years ago when the Executive Director of National Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHCDA) declared a state of emergency on routine immunisation due to its poor performance in some States including Kogi.

“We have identified 18 States that have poor performance of routine immunisation.

“We are trying to see how we can support the State Routine Immunisation Coordination Centre (SERICC) to really come up in terms of performance, and Kogi is one of those States.

“This is our second meeting with the CoS to present the issues that need to be looked into and address so that Kogi can be among those performing state in immunisation.

“The issue of funding is critical to carry out all the activities involved in routine immunization, particularly to take services to remote communities.

“We want the state to also create more awareness among caregivers through the traditional institutions, and to take front seat in the leadership role,” Ali said.

“We are very glad with what we heard today from the state government and for being able to fulfil part of those promises made during the previous meeting,” Ali said.

In his response, Onoja assured the team of the government’s support and total commitment to get Kogi children immunised against killer diseases.

The chief of staff also promised to encourage the LG Administrators to be actively involved in the routine immunization services interms of moral, manpower and financial support.

He said that the issue of inadequate manpower and welfare of health workers raised by team, would be addressed by the government.

He promised to double check the unresolved issues on the payroll with the Head of Service to those workers that are off or on.

“For LG workers on the payroll, I think we either at pal or a month deficiency though in percentage, but the state seems to be some numbers of months.

“I am sure that we are all aware of the bailout outstanding that is due to Kogi that we are expecting as a state from the federal government.

“We believe that the expected outstanding of N30 billion would substantially solve some of these problems, and the needed motivation,” Onoja said.

Earlier, Dr Abubakar Yakubu, Executive Director, Kogi State Primary Healthcare Development Agency (KSPHCDA), said that the essence of the meeting was to get stakeholders involved in state’s immunisation activities.

”We have also selected some stakeholders in the state to discuss with, so that their roles in routine immunization can be moved beyond what is expected of them.

“We want to achieve a very stable immunization program in the state.

“The meeting we had with the chief of staff today was highly commendable because we had lots of assurances from him; he is a man of his word,” Yakubu said.