MEASLES: CROSS RIVER TO VACCINATE 700,000 CHILDREN.
Written by AIGBOKHAEBHO OKHUELEIGBE on October 20, 2022
No fewer than seven hundred thousand children under the age of five have been targeted by the Cross River State government for its integrated measles vaccination campaign slated for the last week of October.
The Director General of Primary Health Care Development Agency, Janet Ekpenyong, said this in during a media briefing in Calabar
Ekpeyong advised mothers and caregivers to regard the vaccination of their children and wards as a top priority, warning that an unvaccinated child is exposed to measles-related ailments such as permanent blindness and deafness or death.
She said the recent 35 cases were recorded in a refugee camp in Ogoja, populated by Cameroonian refugees.
The integrated measles campaign has become all the more important and explained that her agency was collaborating with the federal government and other critical partners like the World Health Organisation WHO, and the United Nation International Children Emergency Fund UNICEF.
The World Health Organization representative, Ibrahim Audu Salisu who also briefed journalists, highlighted the resolve of the global health body to continue to collaborate with the agency in health-related interventions and called on the media to help sensitize the citizens on the importance of child vaccinations.
Story By Olanrewaju Rasheed
