About six million people between ages nine months and 44 years are to be vaccinated against yellow fever in Bauchi State during its 10-day vaccination exercise.
This was made known on Friday by the state Immunization Officer, Bakoji Ahmed, at a one-day orientation of the media on the yellow fever vaccination campaign held in Bauchi, the state capital.
Ahmed informed that the target for the 10-day vaccination exercise was to vaccinate 85 percent of the state’s population, particularly those within the age range for the vaccination.
According to him, yellow fever had no specific treatment, adding that in spite of this, the disease could be prevented through vaccination.
The State Immunization Officer said that the state had adequate yellow fever vaccines, informing that the Bauchi State Primary Health Care Development Agency (BSPHCDA) had over seven million doses of the vaccines in its cold room.
According to him, the vaccines would be transported from the Agency’s cold room and distributed local government areas’ cold rooms, adding that vaccination teams would then get them from the wards for onward vaccination of the people, adding that some vaccines would be deposited at the 27 referral health centres across the state.
Ahmed informed that a total of 2, 261 teams consisting of 1,968 from the National Primary Healthcare Department Agency (NPHCDA) and 298 from BASPHCDA would be involved in the 10-day exercise.
He said the teams would not be vaccinating people in 30 wards of Alkaleri; Kirfi; Bauchi and Tafawa Balewa LGAs, saying that their exclusion was because there were vaccination exercises in the wards in 2019 and 2020.
The immunization officer explained that yellow fever vaccine was not a repeated vaccine but one that was to be taken once in a lifetime.
He assured that in view of the Covid-19 pandemic, all the preventive protocol will be observed during the vaccination exercise to prevent spread of the dreaded pandemic.
While assuring that adequate awareness has been created for the vaccination exercise, Ahmed further assured that the hard to reach areas and security compromised places would be taken care during the exercise.
