Nursing mothers in Eket, Akwa Ibom State have expressed concern over the lingering scarcity of vaccines for immunising new born babies against preventable childhood diseases.
LEADERSHIP checks at health facilities in Eket and its environs revealed that the vaccine scarcity had persisted even across the state for several months.
The nursing mothers who spoke to our correspondent yesterday on shortage said that they were anxious to immunise their children but regretted that the vaccines were either in short supply or out of stock.
It was gathered that the measles vaccine was among those in short supply but health workers assured that the likelihood of an epidemic was slim because of the rainy season as the disease is usually prevalent during the dry season.
“We thank God that we are in the rainy season, so there is a very slim chance of measles at this wet season”, Ekpeyong Josephine, a Nurse said.
The health workers appealed to the state and federal government to urgently take steps to address the scarcity which they said cuts across the state.
“I am disturbed at this development because the nurses kept asking me to come back as they did not have some of the required vaccines in their cold store and I cannot afford to leave my baby without immunisation.
“The situation has persisted so I had to take the baby to Uyo, the state capital and even the general hospital there did not have the vaccines and there were so many mothers and their babies, that was how I knew that it is a general problem,” Uduak Enobong a nursing mother said.
At Immanuel General Hospital in Eket health workers directed nursing mothers to primary health centres as they had not received the vaccines for the past four months.
A nurse at the hospital who spoke on condition of anonymity said that the scarcity of vaccines was a challenge to public health as the commodity could not be sourced from the open market.
“It is a problem that we have been having and sometimes when we receive some stock we administer to babies delivered here and refer those that come from outside to primary health centres in their locality”, she said.
Mr Aniedi Daniel, Local Government Immunisation Officer for Eket Council told our correspondent in an interview yesterday that there was a shortfall in supply of vaccines.
“We understand it is a national issue but on our part we have educated nursing mothers who are adequately vaccinated and assured them that with exclusive breast feeding there is no threat to their babies while we hope that the situation is addressed.
“I have an expected 687 new births monthly but I get only 100 doses so you can see that there is a shortfall of 587 but we are doing our best to manage the situation’’, Daniel said.
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