INNOVATIVE APPROACHES TO COMMUNITY MOBILISATION FORIMMUNISATION IN MARACHA HEALTH SUB DISTRICT, ARUA DISTRICT

For years, the vaccination coverage for the indicator doses (DPT3) in Maracha Health Sub-District (HSD) have not reached the 80% target set by the Ministry of health. The Health Sub District management team brainstormed on the reasons for the persistently poor performance and charted the way forward in one of the review meetings. An approach to community mobilisation involving the sub-counties was agreed upon and was found to have improved the vaccination coverage of the HSD by 36% in the last four months of the financial year after the review meeting. The direct financial cost of immunisation per child reduced by 40% for the two periods July-February and February-June of the financial year where different approaches to mobilisation were used. It can be concluded that it is possible to attain and sustain vaccination coverage of children above 80% for all the vaccines by just mobilising the population. HSDs indeed the Health units have to work through and with sub country systems.