Dr. Enrique Paz ascertains Cameroon’s Preparedness to Immunise in Hard to Reach Communities
RAISE for Sahel (R4S) Chief of Party – Dr. Enrique Paz – visits Cameroon to ascertain CBC Health Services’ preparedness to kick start
activities in the field in the weeks ahead. The visit comes after CBC Health Services’ six months of exhaustive work to identify advocacy-related issues, demand and supply barriers affecting the immunisation landscape in Zero-Dose Immunisation (ZIP) communities in the most marginalised and vulnerable populations out of government reach.
Within this time frame, the CBC Health Services team has been exploring different strategies to ensure Cameroon’s readiness to reach the last mile in immunising every child in Cameroon by 2025.
During his 4-day visit to Yaoundé-Cameroon from January 25 to 28, Dr. Paz expressed his joy in returning to Cameroon after a long time. “As Chief of Party for the Raise for Sahel Project, it was important for me to put faces to the names I hear from daily. Also, to see what has been done, and give the team the desired push to help them realise their objectives,” Dr. Paz explained during an introductory meeting with the entire RAISE for Sahel (R4S) team.
According to Dr. Foyeth Eugene, the Chief of Party’s coming is timely. It will enable the team to consolidate CBC Health Services’ relationship with key actors in the immunisation landscape in Cameroon. “I feel honoured that out of the seven implementing countries, the Chief of Party chose Cameroon to kick-start his visits. It comes with many responsibilities, and we embrace it with joy,” Doctor Foyeth said.
During his stay in Cameroon, Dr. Paz had several meetings with the Chief of Cameroon’s R4S Secretariat, the entire R4S Cameroon team, the EPI Permanent Secretary, and representatives from GAVI, UNICEF, WHO, and CHAI, amongst others. These meetings enabled Dr. Paz to understand the institutionalisation and anchoring of the R4S Project in Cameroon.
Discussions also handled the involvement of the Ministry of Health and other stakeholders; the complementarity with other programs and projects in the selected sites; the choice of target health districts; the level of technical and operational readiness; the need to use data and other resources generated by other partners; civil society engagement; potential challenges and mitigation approaches and expectations of the R4S Project vis-à-vis other established partners on the ground like UNICEF, WHO and CHAI. These meetings enabled the R4S Chief of Party to understand CBC Health Services’ level of mastery, collaboration, partnerships and systems put in place to ensure no child is left unimmunised in Cameroon’s hard-to-reach, underserved conflict areas.
In the discussions, it was recommended that the R4S Project be presented to the ICC; collaborate with the EPI and other actors in the humanitarian space to avoid duplication of resources; integrate the R4S team to discussion forums on vaccination and subsequent in-person or virtual discussions and share R4S presentation with relevant stakeholders to facilitate collaboration.
It is worth noting that over 42,000 children under the age of one are either unimmunised or under-immunised in Cameroon (DHIS2, August 2022). Hence, the Zero-Dose Immunisation Project (ZIP) implemented by a consortium led by World Vision would run in 7 countries in the Sahel Region, including Cameroon.
It is hoped that with the injection of the Equity Accelerator Fund from GAVI, World Vision Consortium led by Dr. Paz would ensure that every child, regardless of where they are, would be immunised.