Women groups want Cervical Cancer Vaccine Campaign extended rural communities

By Samuel Luka

Women Groups in Akko Local Government Area of Gombe state have stressed the need for grassroots sensitisation to educate communities against threat to the lives of women by cervical cancer and the urgent need to accept the vaccine irrespective of cultural and religious misinformation being peddled.

The Leaders of the women groups spoke at a one-day town hall meeting held in Kumo to create awareness about the efficacy of vaccine to prevent cervical cancer.

While commending Azurfa women and youths development initiative (AWOYDI) for organising the awareness campaign, the women leader Asabe Ali requested that similar exercise be replicated at ward levels to enable women in hard to reach communities benefit from the Sensitisation campaign.

She appealed to religious and traditional leaders to partner Akko Primary Health Care Centre (PHC) and AWOYDI to carry out the campaign across all the nooks and crannies the the LG for positive impact.

Also speaking, spokeswoman of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Talatu Musa, called for fairness in the selection of beneficiaries, as according to her, the choice of participants was lopsided.

She opined that such lopsidedness may send a wrong signal that can frustrate the optimum goal of encouraging women, particularly girls within the age bracket of 9 to 14 years from accessing the cervical cancer vaccine.

Earlier on, the Executive Director of AWOYDI, Monica Tanko who thanked international vaccine access Centre, National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHDA) and women advocates for vaccine access (WAVA) for funding the project, promised to liaise with Akko local council to disseminate the message to communities located in inaccessible areas before the peak of the rainy season.

Our Correspondent gathered that about 110 participants attended the town hall meeting in Kumo, notable among whom were; Women, Health workers, traditional and religious leaders.