Over 2.8m children for vaccination against Measles-Rubella in Benue

By Peter Duru, Makurdi

Over 2.8 million children are expected to be vaccinated against Measles-Rubella in Benue State in the coming vaccination campaign.

The World Health Organization, WHO, Technical Officer, Aaron Kwarbai, who made this known at a One Day Media Orientation Meeting for Measles-Rubella Vaccination Campiagn held in Makurdi said the exercise would be held from October 18 to 27, 2025 in the state.

The Technical Officer explained that those targeted during the vaccination campaign would be “children between the ages of zero to 59 months for measles while children between the ages of nine months and 14 years would be the focus for Rubella. And over 2.8 million people are being targeted for the vaccination in Benue state.”

Declaring the meeting open earlier, the Executive Secretary of the Benue State Primary Health Care Board, Mrs. Grace Wende harped on the importance of the campaign and urged the media to support the exercise to ensure its success in the state.

Represented by the State Immunization Officer, SIO, Mr. Emmanuel Adega, the Executive Secretary charged all hands to be on deck to ensure that the state met its target during the exercise.

The State Health Educator, SHE, Mr. Emmanuel Beeka in his presentation urged media practitioners to take the campaign to the nooks and crannies of the state to ensure full participation of the people even in the remotest parts of the state.

He also assured that the sensitisation would be taken to churches, mosques, community leaders, traditional rulers, among others to ensure that all misconceptions were dispelled to have total turnout.

In his presentation, the Social and Behaviour Change Health Consultant with the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, Victor Olaniyi noted that the campaign would be like no other “because this is the first time we are having it in this magnitude and the world is closely monitoring the outcome. That is why we need the media to lead and support the campaign.”

Also, the State Cordinator of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, NPHCDA, Mr. Ishola Abdulrasaq noted the importance of the media to the successful implementation of the exercise.

He said the exercise would last for 10 days with additional mop up days for those that would be missed in the initial 10 days, “and immediately after that, it would be routinised which means that children will have it in the routine immunization. We appeal to the media to escalate this. It is not a new vaccine we had measles vaccine before but we are adding Rubella to make it Measles-Rubella vaccine.”

The post Over 2.8m children for vaccination against Measles-Rubella in Benue appeared first on Vanguard News.