Abia State Primary Healthcare Development Agency has vowed to mop up children of 24 to 59 months who could not be vaccinated during the COVID-19 era.

Over 111,000 children who missed their routine vaccination in 2020 because of COVID-19 in Abia State have been targeted in the ‘Big Catch Up’ immunisation programme.

Speaking on the ‘Big Catch Up’ vaccination for the children, the Abia State Immunisation Officer, Mrs Chinwe Eke, said the programme targets children who have not received immunisation from birth because of COVID-19. She said a lot of children missed their immunisation.

“We discovered 111,000 children who have not received our antigens in Abia State,” She said and identified six local government areas as the most affected to include, Arochukwu, with 18,333; Aba South, with 29,448; Umunneochi, 10,339; Obingwa, 18,670; Osisioma, 16,837 and Ohafia, 17,382.

Eke said so far, 30 per cent of the number has been captured in the past five days of the programme, explaining that the remaining 70 per cent would be captured in the next phase in January and February 2025.

“We started on the 9th. We have mop-up facilitators in the six local government areas. At the end of the day, we will have data of children immunised which will be validated by the end of the exercise.

“The data we have generated for the past five days is 30 per cent of children aged two years to 59 months, that took Penta 1, Immuno polio vaccine (IPV), and Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine (PCV).”

The Abia State Immunisation Officer explained that the UNICEF and the World Health Organisation (WHO) sponsored programme was adversely affected by the delay in payment of workers’ stipend which she attributed to bureaucratic bottleneck.

According to her, “when the workers are not paid on time it limits their drive and area of coverage but when they are paid promptly it helps to go far in the work.”

She said the vaccination would last three months. We have another in January and February. We must cover the Penta 1, IPV and PCV.

Eke rated the state high in immunisation, saying Governor Alex Otti has been supportive of immunisation programmes.