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Region Ten vaccination coverage falls short –but officials anticipate improved results
Despite the implementation of a number of measures, Region Ten has found itself lagging behind in its vaccination coverage.
This is according to the Region’s Senior Health Visitor [ag], Ms. Karen King, when she shared the results of the region’s Expanded Programme on Immunisation [EPI] review for the third quarter of 2018.
The senior health official said that while the Region had projected 75 percent coverage in each vaccination area, this was not achieved despite several efforts.
“We did not get the proposed 75 percent of the various antigens but for most of the antigens we did get 75 percent and over,” she informed.
Among the areas of concern that fell below 75 percent are Bacillus Chalmette-Guerin [BCG], Bivalent Oral Polio Vaccine [BOPV], Yellow Fever [YF] and Diphtheria Pertussis and Tetanus [DPT].
“We intend to work on these areas feverishly as we want to ensure that we can take them to 75 percent and beyond in the future,” King assured.
Realising improved results will be possible since according to King, the Region has been able to detect the root of its shortcomings. According to her, the Region has been faced with the vaccination shortfall because, among other things, a number of eligible clients have not been coming forward for the requisite vaccinations.
Senior Health Visitor [ag] for Region 10, Ms. Karen King.
She declared, too, that while the health workers have been doing their best, the challenges faced by several of the Region’s Community Health Workers [CHWs] in particular, are enormous. She pointed out that because of the limitations in several of the areas, it continues to affect the percentages in terms of the vaccination coverage that expected for several of the areas.
“When the health workers go out to find [patients], some of these patients would deliberately give wrong addresses thus making it practically impossible to locate them. There are also cases where you call the [telephone] numbers that they give you and it is not the correct number, and there are cases where we turn up at addresses given only to find out that such persons don’t even exist.
“These are the challenges that we have to contend with and it can be very difficult to increase our percentage when we are forced to face these difficulties,” King stated.
Revealing the results obtained, King said that in the area of BCG the Region recorded 72 percent; for Inactivated Polio Vaccine [IPV] it recorded 76 percent; in the area of BOPV it recorded 74 percent; while for Pentavalent [Penta] it recorded 76 percent.
She continued that for Pneumococcal Vaccine [PCV 13] it recorded 77 percent, for Rotavirus [Rota-Mix] it recorded 81 percent, in the area of Measles Mumps and Rubella [MMR] it recorded 80 percent, in the area of DPT it recorded 68 percent with a similar percent being achieved for YF.
King noted too that the Region was able to achieve 100 percent coverage in the area of Diphtheria Tetanus [DT].
Meanwhile, King said that while 1,492 persons were estimated to be vaccinated with the Human Papilloma Virus [HPV], the Region was only able to vaccinate a mere 350 persons. But according to the senior health official, the region is nevertheless pleased with its figures noting that she expects to see better results when the review of the final quarter of 2018 is completed.
Although more will have to be done to realise the desired goal, King expressed gratitude to the entire health sector of Region Ten, adding that the results gained represented a collective effort of all.
“This was a joint effort, therefore I must say that we are happy with the collective efforts of all of our health care workers and I want to remind the CHWs that they are our partners and together we will achieve our set targets because they are playing a meaningful role too,” King asserted.
The third quarter of the 2018 EPI results review were made known at a recently concluded three-day CHW EPI workshop held at the Len Complex in Linden. The workshop saw the participation of 40 CHWs where a number of issues were addressed and moves made to enhance and improve their reporting skills and techniques.
King disclosed that because of the challenges and difficulties faced by CHWs in terms of effective report writing, it had increased the challenges of the region in terms of its figures and data. She said that several of the health workers’ reports are not done properly in terms of how they should be submitted.
She therefore noted that efforts were made to better educate and inform the CHWs on the appropriate format and style that they need to follow when doing reports.
“We have found that several of the reports submitted by the CHWs are not done properly or to the standards that have been established,” said King as she anticipates this challenge becoming a thing of the past.
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