The Cross River Government on Monday said it was targeting 693,000 children across the state for immunisation against meningitis.
Prof. Ivara Esu, the state’s Deputy Governor made the disclosure during the inauguration of the campaign against meningitis in Calabar.
Esu, represented by Dr Betta Edu, Commissioner for Health, said the state government was working to achieve universal coverage of the immunisation for children between ages 1 to 5 years.
According to him, the exercise has been designed to cover the entire state, including the hard-to-reach areas.
He said the state primary healthcare workers had been trained to effectively carryout the exercise across the state.
“The Cross River Government is committed to ensuring that every preventable vaccine is effectively given out to the children to avoid cases of deformity.
“For this immunisation against meningitis, we are targeting 693,000 children across the state between Dec. 7 and Dec.12.
“I want to call on parents and guardians to make their children available for this immunisation,” he said.
Earlier, Dr Janet Ekpenyong, Director-General, Cross River Primary Healthcare Agency, expressed government’s commitment to ensure that every child was immunised.
Ekpenyong said that the state government had provided the needed manpower and logistics for the success of the exercise.
“We are collaborating with the traditional and religious institutions to ensure that they also encourage their subjects on the need to bring out their children for this exercise.
“We are ready to storm all the communities and the hard-to-reach areas in the state because we want to achieve 100 per cent universal health coverage,” she said.