The Busia Department of Health and Sanitation in collaboration with the National Government and other partners has embarked on a rigorous exercise aimed at accelerating the uptake of COVID-19 vaccine.
This follows a COVID-19 stakeholders meeting at the Busia Agricultural Training Centre (ATC) that resolved to implement a series of actions among them, conducting COVID-19 in-reaches in selected health facilities, outreaches, household, institutional and community mapping to reach residents who have not been vaccinated.
The Busia Deputy County Commissioner Kipchumba Rutto, who represented the National Government, underscored the need for joint efforts in ensuring that locals get the jab, adding that team work was the way forward to combat the disease.
He added that: “The relaxation of the Covid-19 containment measures should not be an excuse for locals not to get vaccinated. We require concerted efforts from everyone to strengthen the fight against the disease.”
Rutto further stressed that through the devolved administrative units they will provide the support required to ensure that residents are pushed to go for vaccination.
The County Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) coordinator, Juliet Kilima revealed that the vaccination status is at 28.6 per cent, which is below the target by the Ministry of Health (MoH) which targets 70 per cent of the residents to be vaccinated by June 30th, 2022.
She stated “We target to reach 479,236 people who are 18 years and above.
Statistics indicate that those who have received the first dose are 223,921 which is equivalent to 38.1 per cent, while those who have received the second dose are 84,401, which constitutes those who have received both the 1st and 2nd doses,”
She further said that 59,206 have defaulted accounting to 42.8 per cent, while 288,085 have not been vaccinated which is equivalent to 60 per cent of the target population.
Partners including Dumisha Afya expressed their commitment towards supporting efforts to increase the number of residents vaccinated across the County.