Planning stage

Every campaign programme must be planned. No programme or project ever succeeds without being planned. Planning is an inevitable part of immunization campaign. It involves the following steps:

i. Distribution of letters to the local government chairman, the PHC coordinators and other key officers of the local government area level where the implementation of the programme is to be done.  

ii. Such letters should contain the following information:

a.      Objectives of the campaign e.g. immunization campaign may be            centered on poliomyelitis eradication in Nigeria.

b. The phase and round of the immunization programme, for instance, phase one (1) round one (1) may be directed to a particular childhood diseases e.g tuberculosis

iii.    Strategies to be used in achieving the programme such as house to house and use of static or outreach methods.

iv. The date of commencement and the duration of the campaign should range from few days to one or two weeks.

v. The skills and number of participants

vi. Training programmes for others to be engaged

vii. Note the expectations and contributions of the LGAs towards the success of the campaign

viii. Note the expectations and contributions of the state and federal government through various agencies

ix. Provide a time table for the achievements of the said objectives understanding that these activities are to be coordinated and supervised by the state where the skilled manpower exist

x. At the state level budgets have to be prepared to address the following needs:

✓ Personnel cost

✓ Materials needed and cost implication

✓ Cost of organizing advocacy meetings with the policy makers

✓ Cost of publicity/mobilization from the state to grassroots level

xi. Design key massages for dissemination (social mobilization)

Implementation stage

   Having concluded the planning stages of the immunization campaign and at the same time disseminated the information to those involved, the next stage is the implementation. The implementation stage involves the following activities;

i. Distribution of vaccines to local government areas

ii. Distribution of materials and cold chain equipments to the local government areas

iii. Posting of state supervisors to each local government area to supervise and report back to the state ministry of health at the end of the programme

iv. Undertake a pre – implementation visit to the LGAs to ascertain their readiness

v. Flag – off ceremony to bro organized a day before the actual take – off of the programme usually at the LGA headquarters or any selected location within the LGA to create avenue for mobilization

vi. Send out independent monitoring team to the LGA to evaluate the programme, identify areas of weakness and make suggestion that will lead to sustained improvement

vii. The monitoring teams and supervisors to pay for advocacy visits to the community leaders and other leaders of thought in the LGA to solicit for more support

Post – implementation stage

This refers to all the activities that take place after the programme has been implemented. Prominent among this activities are;

i. Collection of data and presentation of reports to the state ministry of health

ii. Evaluation of report through review meeting

iii. Checking areas of strength and weakness

iv. Making comparative analysis of the past and present results to know if the objectives has been achieved or not

v. Decide measures that will circumvent the factors that posed some hindrance

vi. Reports of programme to be completed by the state authorities and sent to the federal and donor agencies for assessment and future reference

vii. Resolve to reward all participants. The reward which takes the form of certain allowances serves as motivation for participating in the programme.