One Day. One Focus: Ending Polio 24 October

Polio is a highly infectious disease that enters the body through the mouth in water or food contaminated with faecal material from an infected person. The disease spreads rapidly in unimmunized or inadequately immunized populations, especially children. Uganda was first declared polio free in 2006, but outbreaks have been attributed to importations from neighbouring countries and also to a lack of funding and resources for routine immunization coverage. To prevent Polio, the Ministry of Health, WHO, and UNICEF conduct rounds of house-to-house supplemental polio immunisation countrywide. These mass immunisation campaigns do not replace routine immunisation, but aim to reach all children under 5 years with oral vaccine.

With the aid of fighting the 13 killer diseases agnainst early childhood through the initiative support of the Government and stakeholders in partnership with Cico Uganda implemented a vaccination campaign that was zeroed to village level to target every child and leaving no household behind bit rural nor urban, employed nor non-employed caretakers. This exercise was camped at pre-primary, primary schools, churches and market places. The organization in support of the health worker managed to engage and train church leaders, cultural leader, Village Health Teams(VHTs), area councilors the benefits of the vaccination aid and how to accomplish to it's full dose. The organization also supported with eye materials translated to different languages in order to amplify the vaccination campaign. This campaign was a three day marathon camp that was from Fri. 04th November 2022 to Sun. 06th November, 2022 

How Important and Urgent was the Vaccination Aid.

A couple of years ago, there used to be six killer diseases in children, these six killer diseases are measles, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, polio and tuberculosis, but now imerged to thirteen killer diseases in Uganda and the vaccination campaigns are all about to save life.

We were once vaccinated when we still young and now have the ability lead these generation. It is now good to secure childrens lives for future leaders.

The vaccines were not harmful but cool and convinient to choldren.

Polio Vaccination Aid saves money from polio virus prevention to caretakers/caregivers. 

It builds foundation immunity of children to outstand diseases.

Challenges.

We had few vaccine container careers to support in the process.

There were few VHTs covering a wide distance area.

Misconcept of polio benefits to children below the age of 5 years by the parents and caretakers.

Children far away from the health juridiction like Island miss the program due to limmitted fund that can't allow further support to such places.

Next Steps

The data collected during this round of vaccination will be used to inform the planning for subsequent rounds of the campaign. Cico Uganda may include additional sensitisation messages that answer frequently asked questions, alter the content of radio advertisements and the stations used to broadcast them, consider supplementary forms of mass media, and follow-up with house-to-house vaccinators where vaccination was not reported.

Conclusion

Cico Uganda and partners used VHTs to engage the communities of Uganda, inform them of Polio vaccinations in their community, answer questions, measure the reach of radio advertisements, and confirm the presence of those vaccinators. This series of VHTs polls and messages will improve the effectiveness and reach of Polio vaccination, improve government accountability, leading to accelerated results for children.

Links:

• Building Back Better: towards a disability
• Support Cico Uganda attain a website
• Share a gift of Christmas with a child today