Northern States laud New Incentives as vaccination rate hits 2m

The New Incentives – All Babies Are Equal (NI-ABAE) program said it has so far provided cash incentives amounting to N4,752,714,560 to 1,838,981 caregivers in northern Nigeria to increase childhood vaccination rates between January and September 2023.

The Operations Coordinator, New Incentives, Mubarak Muhammad Bawa made this known during a joint states stakeholders meeting held in Kano.

He said, “The project provides cash incentives to caregivers in northern Nigeria to increase childhood vaccination rates. When caregivers bring their infant in for routine immunizations, we provide a small cash incentive and information about the importance of vaccinations.

“The program operates in government clinics in partnership with the state, local governments and immunization partners. So far we have recorded 1,838,981 enrollments from 163 Local Government Areas covering 48,795 settlements and 5,240 clinics.

“We also have recorded  346,521 disbursement sessions, 6,033,921 disbursements, 23,022,078 vaccines encouraged and an amount of N4,752,714,560 have so far been disbursed.”

Also speaking, the Kano State Routine Immunization focal person, Mukhtar Rabiu Abubakar said, “At the state level, the program has significantly improved the uptake of routine immunization. Before our indices were very low in routine immunization but now it is increasingly improving in all our facilities.”

Implementing and participating states are Kano, Jigawa, Sokoto, Taraba, Kebbi, Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna Adamawa, Gombe and Bauchi States and also states from the Northeast.