The Sultan Foundation on Sunday concluded the onboarding of 334 routine immunisation (RI) service providers, calling for greater efforts to tackle the zero-dose challenge among children in Zamfara State.
The one-day onboarding exercise was conducted in four phases in collaboration with the Zamfara State Government under the Z-TRACE project.
The participants comprised 313 routine immunisation service providers and 21 local government area (LGA) team leads, community-based organisation (CBO) representatives, and LGA Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) officers.
The exercise aimed to identify, track and vaccinate zero-dose and under-immunised children across seven selected local government areas.
The Foundation is implementing the Z-TRACE project, which targets 80,772 children, representing 30 per cent of the 269,421 zero-dose and under-immunised children in Gusau, Talata-Mafara, Bakura, Shinkafi, Anka, Zurmi and Tsafe LGAs.
Speaking at the close of the exercise, the Sultan Foundation’s State Programme Officer, Jamilu Sarkin-Gulbi, said the training was designed to clarify the responsibilities of RI service providers and strengthen coordination among health facilities, community mobilisers and local government authorities.
He said the onboarding brought together RI service providers, Z-TRACE local government coordinators, CBO representatives, M&E officers and other stakeholders, including officials of the Zamfara State Primary Health Care Management Board.
According to him, the exercise was necessary to strengthen collaboration between CBOs and health workers, particularly in identifying children who had never received routine immunisation or had missed scheduled vaccine doses.
Sarkin-Gulbi emphasised the importance of accurate data collection and reporting, describing both as critical to measuring the project’s success.
He said every child identified and vaccinated must be properly documented, validated and reported through established channels in the District Health Information Software (DHIS2).
The programme officer urged officials to ensure accurate documentation and reporting to enable the government and development partners to assess the project’s impact.
He disclosed that the Foundation had established mechanisms to track the activities of community mobilisers and RI service providers using the Open Data Kit (ODK) platform.
According to him, the M&E team provides weekly feedback to CBOs to strengthen accountability and ensure that identified children are followed up until they receive their vaccinations.
Sarkin-Gulbi added that the Foundation was collaborating with relevant immunisation monitoring structures, including the ACASUS team, to monitor the delivery of planned immunisation sessions.
He said community mobilisers were expected to hold weekly reconciliation meetings with RI providers to confirm the availability of health workers and ensure that scheduled sessions took place.
The programme officer urged participants to maintain effective collaboration and demonstrate commitment to achieving the objectives of the Z-TRACE project.
He also appealed to the media to intensify public awareness campaigns on routine immunisation, particularly regarding the dangers of diphtheria and other vaccine-preventable diseases.
The Z-TRACE project is being implemented by the Sultan Foundation for Peace and Development, with funding support from Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, to strengthen community engagement and improve routine immunisation coverage.
Other partners supporting the initiative include New Incentives, ACASUS, the Gates Foundation, Solina and the media, alongside relevant state and local government health structures.
