By: Eneji Simon Ushie.
The Director General of the Cross River State Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Dr Janet Ekpenyong over the weekend joined other stakeholders in the Nigerian health sector to deliberate on an expanded approach towards vaccine utilization and the forth coming Covid-19 Vaccine roll out tagged “Model 2.0/3.0”.
The meeting which was held at the conference hall of the Marriot Hotels, Lagos State Nigeria is among the series of lined up activities aimed at achieving optimal vaccination coverage and renegotiating Distribution plans in order to take the vaccine closer to end users.
Declaring the meeting open, Executive Director/CEO of the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Dr. Faisal Shuaib commended the team for the amazing work done so far and encouraged them to continually engage strategic individuals and groups to Vaccinate more Nigerians.
According to him, there is need for an improvement in the delivery of services by health workers as he charged the various Executive Secretaries of State Primary Healthcare Agencies and Boards to ensure that the vaccine is taken to those who are eligible. “The usual is not good enough, we have to go bold. We have the jabs, now we are looking for the arms.”
Also presented and discussed in the meeting was the SCALES strategy — (service delivery, communication, accountability, logistics, EMID, supervisory) which focuses on ramping up COVID-19 vaccine status, provide guidance on the operationalization of the vaccination campaign.
It was an opportunity for states to also share update on the planned Primary Healthcare summit, which will be an opportunity to galvanize support for Primary Healthcare in Nigeria.
The team had earlier joined the Lagos state Primary Healthcare board as it rolled out the mass vaccination campaign in the State coving markets, places of public interest and other social and recreational facilities.
In their separate responses , Dr Janet Ekpenyong and other Executive Secretaries of State Primary Healthcare Agencies and Boards, reiterated their commitments to the implementation of the new strategy, which will fast track the country’s prospect of achieving herd immunity in 2022, and a successful outcome of the forthcoming Primary Healthcare summit which they believe will help mobilize resources that will help bridge the existing gaps hindering Primary Healthcare delivery in the country.
At the meeting were the Executive Director/CEO National Primary Healrh Care Development Agency, Dr. Faisal Shuaib, Executive Secretaries of the 36 State Primary Health Care Development Agency/Boards, Program Managers of SERRICs, State Immunization Officers and Partners.
