Segun Babatunde, Bauchi
Women groups in Akko LGA of Gombe State have stressed the need for grassroots sensitization 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 women group leaders 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, women leader Asabe Ali requested that similar exercise be replicated at ward levels to enable women in hard to reach communities benefit from the Sensitization campaign.
She appealed to religious and traditional leaders to partner AKKO PHC and AWOYDI to carry the campaign across all the nooks and crannies of AKKO LGA For it to impact positively.
In the same vein ,the spokeswoman of CAN, Talatu Musa called for fairness in the selections of beneficiaries, because according to her the choice of participants was lopsided,saying this 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, the executive director of AWOYDI, Monica Tanko promised to liaise with Akko local council to disseminate the message to communities located in inaccessible areas before the peak of the rainy season.
About 110 participants attended the town hall meeting in Kumo,notable among whom are; Women,Health workers,traditional and religious leaders END
