Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State
has decried COVID-19 Vaccination apathy in the South-East zone, urging South-East governors and other stakeholders to sensitize their citizenry on the importance of the vaccines, to up-scale the current rate of daily vaccination against the pandemic.
He made the call while declaring open the South-East Zone Primary Health Care and COVID-19 Vaccination Review Meeting, held in Enugu, on Wednesday.
Represented by the Deputy Governor, Mrs Cecilia Ezeilo, Ugwuanyi lamented that the recent statistics of daily and total aggregate COVID-19 vaccinated figures from the zone remained low compared with other zones in the country.
He said: “We are assuring the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), after this review meeting, that we are going to work harder as a zone to up-scale our efforts.
“We will adopt the appeal of Sen. Chukwuka Utazi, on the need for our people to renew their vigour for COVID-19 mass vaccination intake in the South-East”.
“I will want various executive secretaries of South-East states’ Primary Health Care Development Agency to get close to the grassroots and interact with town unions, traditional rulers and other leaders to see how best to up-scale COVID-19 vaccinations”, he said.
Earlier, Senate Committee Chairman for Primary Health Care, and senator representing Enugu North senstoriall zone, Chuka Utazi,
said that the meeting was important to the South-East zone ,in order to resolve issues of hesitancy, low awareness and outright rejection of the ongoing COVID-19 mass vaccination.
He urged residents of the South-East to have a re-think on their acceptance of COVID-19 vaccination and shun all forms of rumours about the vaccination.
”We must have a re-think and speed up the COVID-19 vaccination rate. Our people are highly educated and knowledgeable on global issues, especially the positive benefits of the COVID-19 mass vaccination.
“We are business people in the zone and we need to be healthy to do our businesses well, which brings us to the need to ensure that COVID-19 pandemic is dealt with in the zone.
“The states in the South-East should wake up and we should take our rightful place in this national exercise and be among the most ranked states in COVID-19 administration,” Utazi said.
The senator commended the NPHCDA for its commitment and dedication to seeing that the country succeeded in COVID-19 mass vaccination, as well as routine vaccinations across the federation.
In his speech, the Executive Director / Chief Executive Officer of NPHCDA, Dr Faisal Shuaib, urged the South-East governments and stakeholders to do more in terms of awareness and enlightenment to debunk all known or emerging malinformation against COVID-19 vaccination.
He said that the zone should do more and better, given the high literacy level within the zone.
“In this review meeting, we must put heads together, find out as well as resolve why the COVID-19 mass vaccination is not moving with expected rate and speed in the zone
“Nationally, we must use the same zeal and ingenuity that led us to eradicate polio and to ensure that every single person in the country gets vaccinated and all citizens get protected.
“For the South-East, we must adopt practices that will work in the zone and ensure that rejection and hesitancy are totally eliminated for the exercise to be embraced by all.
“I believe that the meeting would enable us all in the zone to take determined steps to chart the way forward,” he said.
He suggested that South-East states should set-up a high powered committee at the governor’s level that would comprise the governor or his deputy, commissioner of health, executive secretary of state PHCDA and other critical stakeholders.
“They should hold weekly or more regular meetings on the daily COVID-19 vaccination, mandate council chairmen to meet up their daily targets and reward hard working council chairmen with recognitions and awards to spur them to do more.
“The state should support COVID-19 mass vaccinators with daily monetary incentive to motivate them to do more; be more resilient in convincing residents and upping their daily vaccination jabs given to residents”, he said.
On his part, the Commissioner for Health ,Anambra state and Chairman of the Forum of Health Commissioners in the South-East, Dr Vincent Okpala, said that the meeting was timely as the Primary Health Care remained the gateway in the health system meant to achieve national health targets.
“I sincerely believe that the meeting will come out with harmonized and workable strategies to overcome the current challenges being faced that had led to the low COVID-19 mass vaccination level in the South-East,” he said.
In his welcome address, the Enugu state Commissioner for Health, Dr. Emmanuel Ikechukwu Obi, said that the meeting was aimed at reviewing the progress of the COVID-19 vaccines in the south east zone . It also aimed at achieving a cohesion and to point at the right direction to show that they were called to serve.
Commissioners for Health and top officers of the South East states’ Primary Health Care Development Agency were in attendance at the review meeting.
