Via The Monitor: Immunisation campaign given 5-day extension. Excerpt:
The Ministry of Health has extended the mass immunisation campaign exercise to five more days following an overwhelming turn-up.
According to the tentative report by the ministry released after the three-day national immunisation campaign, the exercise had 90 per cent coverage with more than 6 million children out of the targeted 6.9 million being immunised.
The rural and hard-to-reach areas had the biggest turn up.
The 45 districts, where outbreaks of measles and polio had earlier been reported, all had a coverage rate of above 90 per cent.
Dokolo, Busia and Lira districts which have in the past years been rated poor performers, emerged the best in the campaign.
“The turn-up has been amazing,with health workers working until 7pm due to a massive turn-up of children being brought for immunisation," Ms Catherine Ntabadde, the URCS senior spokesperson, said.
She added: “The fact that there has been real cases of polio and measles seems to be the driving factor of most parents to embrace the immunisation.”
Ms Rukia Mbaziira, the ministry of health spokesperson, said: “The performance indicates that we are doing well according to the World Health Organisation standards. We are going with a more packed exercise for five more days to have parents from well performing districts encourage those from poor performing districts.”
