HPV Vaccination: Girl Effect, Partners H4CC to train stakeholders on Digital APP in Kaduna
From: Femi Mustapha
In a concerted effort to create awareness of the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) among young girls between ages 14-19, the GGirl Effect, in collaboration with Hope for Communities and Children (H4CC), has convened crucial stakeholders to train them on digital “Champion’s App.”
Speaking during the training in Kaduna today, the Programme and Youth Participation Manager of GGirl Effect, Mr. Hamsa Ibrahim, said his organization is collaborating with H4CC and CBO on grant partnership with regards to creating awareness on the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) among young girls between ages 14-19.
According to him, the training is for stakeholders from the State Primary Healthcare Board and the Ministry of Health to train healthcare workers and teachers within some LGAs in Kaduna State on how to use what they called the “Champion’s App.”
He explained that the App is a model that helps to put the contents of messaging into a digital app, which also helps in reaching very hard-to-reach areas with information.
Mr. Ibrahim explained that locations with low file uptake could also use the App to inaugurate information that is needed to create a boost in demand for the uptake of HPV vaccination in the state.
He stressed that the trained healthcare workers and teachers will return to hold sessions with the girls, including their parents, to be able to provide the necessary information, create the ambience of enabling environment for people to know, and also debunk some of the myths and misconceptions on why people are not taking the HPV vaccines.
Speaking on some of the misconceptions, Mr. Ibrahim said the parents fear the vaccines will make their wards sterile and also make them promiscuous, among others; however, he debunked the beliefs, saying no, the vaccine does not cure cancer but will help protect young girls from getting Cervical cancer.
In her remarks, the Team Lead of H4CC, Hadiza Umar, said she’s honored that her organization was nominated to implement the program in the State, noting that it shows the State Government trusts the organization.
She added that they are also excited because even before the nomination, her organization has been trying to clear all misconceptions about the vaccine and also encourage parents and families to allow their young girls to access the vaccine.
“Meanwhile, this vaccine is life-saving because we know lots of women are having cancer issues now,, especially cervical cance,r, and if they uptake the vacci,ne, it will help prevent our girls from getting Cervical cancer.
“So, we feel really honored to be one that has been entrusted to help boost these LGAs that are backward. Kaduna has three LGAs that are backward, namely, Kaduna South, Chikun, and Kubau, whose vaccine uptake is very low, and we must ensure we boost these LGAs’ vaccine uptake.
“The good thing is that we have met with the communities, the religious/communities’ leaders and we have their backing to do this. The community members are very happy to support the process.
“And as you can see now the champions that are supposed to work with us in ensuring that they use the App to reach out to the right people – parents and girls and the healthcare workers are also going to help roll out the immunization exercise including the agencies in the ministry are all represented here so that they can give us the necessary backing we need to succeed.”
Speaking on behalf of the stakeholders, the state Health Education Officer working with the Primary Healthcare Board, Mr. Isah Yusa’u, said they were on a kind of stakeholder engagement as well as the commencement of training of HP vaccine Champions.
According to him, these are some individuals who have been identified from the local communities by one of the organizations that support the rollout of HPV vaccines introduced around May 2024.
‘The organization is called Girls Effect Foundation which is one of the organizations working towards improvement of the health of adolescent girls and women in Nigeria. Kaduna happens to be among the five states that were given the support.
“The foundation has selected some LGAs in the state to see how it could help in creating awareness and bridging the gaps in the uptake of these important vaccines.
As a stakeholder, Yusa’u said he is excited and happy because, during the rollout of the vaccines last year, there were several challenges encountered in some communities due to some of the infordemics – that is, misconceptions and false information spreading across, especially in the social media space.
“So, you know, we have to always consider what the concerns of the people are and how we can now give them the required information for them to make the right choices.
“This particular project is trying to identify some individuals within the communities who know about the vaccines and the disease itself, and how we can influence people to take the vaccines so that our girls can be protected from cervical cancer.
“So, they now develop an App that can be used to monitor sessions where international sessions between either mothers or male parents and the young girls trying and to bring them on board, sensitize and to give them scientific information about the disease itself, the vaccines and where they can get this vaccine.
“The App will help us get an aggregation of the data from those individuals contacted as well as numbers of those whom we can identify and refer to the health facility for vaccination.
“This is a shift from the usual way we collect data using paper and pen, but we are doing it electronically that can be harvested at the back end and analyzed at all levels.
“Someone either from within the country or outside can easily access what we are doing, what our people are doing, know how we can navigate within our communities to bring them in board and give them an update information about health and expected activities.
“This is not the first time that we have been engaging people from the communities, we have identified champions during other health interventions, but this is the very first time we have an App that can now track.
“For example, if someone is sent to Kubau, Gwagwalada, or Guriga in Chikun LGA, we here in Kaduna can monitor what he is doing, so also people in Abuja need not come down to Kaduna to know what is happening up there.
“They can easily go to the back end and upload the data, analyze it, and know how we are doing, what contributions this engagement of local champions is yielding towards the knowledge of the communities about the disease and the vaccine itself.”
