Polio prevention through community engagement taking promising strides in Kikuube District, Uganda
In Kikuube District bordering DRC, communities are actively working together to ensure that parents and caregivers have the right information to make informed choices to protect their children and demand for health services including vaccination.
Children under the age of five in Uganda remain at risk of polio, a dangerous disease that can cripple or cause death as neighboring Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan continue to register outbreaks. In November 2021, the Ministry of Health declared Polio a Public Health Emergency in Uganda following confirmation of positive laboratory tests from environment samples in Kampala. Since then, there has been active surveillance and mobilization of communities to immunize their children against the disease.
In Kikuube District bordering DRC, communities are actively working together to ensure that parents and caregivers have the right information to make informed choices to protect their children and demand for health services including vaccination.
To improve polio vaccination coverage, UNICEF in collaboration with Kikuube District Local Government, launched the Plus Polio Community Engagement Project to reinforce existing innovative community engagement activities.
“We started activities with an inception meeting for district leaders, training of trainers, and cascaded orientation meetings to community leaders, community health workers, village health teams (VHTs) and adolescent volunteers,” Peter Byaruhanga stated, the Expanded Programme of Immunization (EPI) focal person for Kikuube district.
The Plus Polio Community Engagement Project is a joint effort in the community that involves community influencers, community leaders, religious leaders, health workers and volunteers who are all working hand in hand to mobilize communities. Since its inception, 240 including VHTs, local leaders and adolescent volunteers have been trained as community mobilizers with support from UNICEF to disseminate lifesaving messages to communities.
“After participating in orientation meetings on immunization and how to reach every child, I worked with VHTs and youth volunteers to organize community meetings to discuss child immunization and continued to monitor and follow up households in my community,” Stephen Katende, Local Council 1 Chairperson (LC), Kicaaya village.
“I was trained on how to mobilize parents to immunize their children against vaccine-preventable diseases, taking mid-upper-arm-circumference (MUAC) measurement to check for malnutrition and promoting sanitation and hygiene at the household level as well as during community outreach programmes. Through my work, I have mobilized over 20 families to immunize 35 children.”
At the community level, the VHTs and adolescent volunteers conduct house to house visits, talking to parents and caregivers on child immunization, nutrition assessments and good sanitation and hygiene. They also provide a platform in which communities can raise concerns and seek clarification about the health of their children. But not only that, the teams follow up with families to ensure that children do not miss out on their vaccination schedules or doctor appointments.
Social mobilization activities and active community engagement in Kikuube has yielded benefits for children in the district. In only four months, immunization rates against polio have gone up by 10 percent.
“The community engagement activities helped in mobilization and sensitization of parents and caregivers to seek immunization services, and this greatly contributed to district achievement of 88% DPT3 performance for the period February to April 2023, up from 78% for period October to December 2022,” Peter Byaruhanga, EPI Focal Person Kikuube District.
While there is an increase in polio vaccination in Kikuube, all children under 5 years, especially those who have not received multiple vaccinations against the disease remain at high risk of contracting polio. Polio is a highly infectious disease that can cause paralysis or death. Just one case of polio in a country is considered an outbreak.
The vaccination rates in Uganda range from 80 to 90 per cent for various vaccine-preventable diseases for fully immunized children and 90 per cent for children who have received at least three doses of polio vaccine. The goal is to reach every child below 5 years with multiple doses of the polio vaccine and to ensure children complete their vaccinations according to the government vaccination schedules.
With funding from United States Fund for UNICEF, UNICEF is working hand in hand with the Government of Uganda to support children and families through the provision of vaccines, vaccine cold chain management, disease surveillance, training of health workers and mobilization of communities to ensure that children are protected from vaccine-preventable diseases.
