The FCT Primary Health Care Board (FPHCB) says no child should to die of vaccine-preventable diseases in the country if guardians can disabuse their minds from the myths around vaccines.
Dr Ruqayya Wamakko, the Director-in-Charge of the Primary Healthcare Unit of the board, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Abuja.
Wamakko spoke against the backdrop of the World Immunisation Week that to be marked between April 24 and April 30.
She said that mothers must do everything possible to ensure their children were vaccinated of all the vaccine-preventable diseases, adding “they are all free in the healthcare facilities in FCT’’.
“No eligible child in Nigeria, particularly in FCT should die of vaccine-preventable diseases because all the modalities have been laid down about the vaccination of children.
“All the preventable diseases that have vaccination have been laid down on routine immunisation in the FCT.
“Recently, we have incorporated new ones that were not there before.
“We recently incorporated rotavirus and the second dose of measles vaccine on the routine immunisation and the immunisation takes off gradually according to the national guidelines, so it is done one after the other,” she said.
Wamakko said that anytime government brought on board the vaccination issue, many people would think the government was doing so to harm their children.
She said that government did not have any plan to harm people with vaccines but to prevent people from illnesses, especially children so they could live healthy lives to adulthood.
According to her, anybody that is learned enough will know the importance of vaccination to the body.
She called on residents in FCT to take advantage of vaccine availability in the healthcare facilities for the children.
“Vaccines for children’s diseases are also available in some FCT private hospitals that meet the required modalities to have the vaccines in their care, including the rotavirus vaccine,’’ Wamakko. (NAN)
