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Vaccination a pipe dream for Bajura
BAJURA, MAY 15 -
Despite the fact that the government organises vaccination campaigns frequently in order to reduce the child mortality rate, many remote villages in Bajura district are devoid of the service.
Neither the locals are aware of vaccination nor do the authorities concerned tell them about the service.
“No one has come to this village asking us to get our children vaccinated,” said Tek Bahadur Kunwar, a local of Bichhya Village Development Committee. “We don’t know even that children need to be inoculated.”
When not made immune to diseases such as measles early in life, the people here rely on traditional methods of curing fatal diseases. Authorities blame it on the geographical remoteness.
“Due to the constraint, vaccines stored in Primary Health Centre Kolti cannot be brought here intact,” said Dr. Gunaraj Awasthi, chief of District Public Health Office.
“By the time it is delivered to these remote areas, the vaccine gets useless since it needs to be stored in a freezer,” he claimed.
Bichhya is about three days’ walk from Kolti. Children of Toli, Huni, Rugin, Bandhu and surrounding villages are also deprived of the health service.
The government has made it compulsory to inoculate children against seven diseases — tuberculosis, diphtheria, whooping cough, rickets, polio, measles and Hepatitis ‘B’ — and made the service available free of cost across the country. District Health Office, however, admits that 30 percent of children in Bajura are deprived of vaccines.
According to Awasthi, lack of health workers in the required number has also made it difficult for officials to deliver the service.
Posted on: 2010-05-16 08:07
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