Covid-19: Kishimi,CIHP to inoculate 50,000 community members in Gombe
No fewer than 50,000 persons are expected to receive Covid-19 vaccine in Gombe, following the partnership between Centre for Integrated Health Programmes (CIHP), and Kishimi Shelter and Care Foundation.
According to the Executive Director of the foundation, Grace Samuel, this was geared towards scaling up the uptake of coronavirus vaccine, stressing that there are shortfalls the intervention would bridge.
She revealed that the three-month intervention would spread across, four Local Government Areas, providing sensitisation and mobilisation to rural dwellers on the importance of taking the jab.
She said, “We have started with our own staff, I also received mine today, we have inoculated over a 100, it a three-month campaign and the expected number is 50,000, in Gombe, Akko, Yalmatu Deba and Balanga. There are other Community Based Organisations working in other Local Government s CIHP is doing is to cover the 11 Local Government Areas.
“Personally, I had my reservations about the vaccine but I realised that Coronavirus has come to be with us, so the need to find ways of coping with it just like other vaccines like polio, etc. We usually give people opportunity to ask questions, telling them that it is not compulsory but if they are convinced and they feel they want to take it we usually give them the opportunity.”
Samuel noted that their intervention was geared towards ensuring that communities were properly sensitised about Covid-19, bearing in mind the type of information and its consumers.
“We want to see to the scale up of the uptake of Covid-19 vaccine. We have had a meeting with the Primary Healthcare Development Agency and we discovered that there are gaps, the uptake is slow.
“We as foot soldiers in the community we will mobilise people for the uptake, alot of mobilisation has been done but has been more in the centre more at the state level what we are trying to do is to take it right down to the Local Government Areas and to communities,” she added.
