Moroto Health Department has commenced a four-day polio vaccination exercise targeting children below five years.
This is part of the Global Polio
Eradication Initiative supported by the World Health Organization (WHO) and
UNICEF.
The nationwide door-to-door vaccination campaign
started on Thursday, in sub-regions
including Busoga, Bukedi, Mbale, Sebei, Teso, and Karamoja.
The campaign in Moroto targets 27,627 out of 1.3 million children.
According to Health Officials, Uganda is at a high risk of a
Polio outbreak and possible importation from neighbouring countries due
to porous borders and free movement of people. They also add that the Kenyan counterparts
are also carrying out the vaccination exercise to avert the importation of the
polio disease.
At the start of the campaign, our reporter found out
that children were left alone at home to wait for vaccines while parents had
gone to different areas to look for money and food.
The health
workers could be seen struggling to determine the age of the children
especially those who fall between 4 and 7 years old. They also found it hard to
demarcate the households that were already vaccinated as children kept
following the health team and getting vaccinated on the spot.
Lomuria Lotee, the Village Health Team member in
Lokitelakapel Village, Lotisan sub-county said that he mobilized over 600
children who are eligible for the polio vaccine.
Lotee noted that although the parents were positive about
the exercise, some of them moved with the children to the kraals and others to the
mining sites despite the call to stay home. He
said that the health team shall have to follow the children to the kraals to
ensure they are all covered.
Lotee said that it was also difficult to determine the age
of the children since there were no parents to guide them. He added that some
of the parents did not know the age of their children since they do not keep birth
records.
"You cannot differentiate between the child of 5 and 7
years, all of them are just the same and even their parents do not know when
their children were born, so we are just doing guesswork," Lotee said.
Anna Mary Natuk, one of the parents from Kidepo village in
Lotisan sub-county applauded the government for the vaccine that will protect
their children against disability.
She noted that disabled children in the Karamojong community
are less valued and sometimes they are treated unfairly.
Natuk said that they would not wish to have disabled
children in the community because they are less productive.
‘’Caring for a disabled child is the more frustrating
especially when you do not have money, for example, if the child cannot
walk, you may need a very expensive wheelchair" Natuk explained.
Vincent Muron, the Lotisan Sub County supervisor of the
Polio mass campaign, said that they have made sure that all the hard-to-reach
areas such as kraals and mining sites are covered so that no child is left
behind.
Muron noted that they have scrutinized about 16 big kraals
for the vaccination exercise and all of them shall be covered. He said that the
health team shall have to camp in the kraals for about three days to vaccinate
the children.
Muron explained that even the children who were already
immunized with the polio vaccine under routine must also get the ongoing dose
irrespective of the vaccination status.
Despite, the positive response from the community, Muron highlighted
some of the challenges such as the lack of transport for dispersing the health
team to hard-to-reach areas.