Gboko Local Government Area (LGA) is located in Benue state, north-central Nigeria. It is an urban area comprised of a number of different towns and villages, and is largely home to the Tiv people – an ethnolinguistic group with a population of over 7 million in Nigeria and Cameroon.
Image: Elizabeth Akpehe is heading up the vaccination team in Gboko Local Government Area
When the coronavirus pandemic hit Gboko, it was accompanied by a lot of fear and uncertainty. When the vaccine was ushered in, the state government also had to contend with significant vaccine scepticism and the spread of misinformation.
In May 2021, United Purpose worked closely with the Primary Health Care Board in Gboko to combat this scepticism and increase awareness about preventing the spread of the virus. We did this through running awareness campaigns in the urban areas, and conducting house-to-house visits to provide people with reliable, accurate information.
Elizabeth Akpehe has been a key person in this process. She has many accolades, including Director of Health for Gboko LGA, social worker, civil servant, farmer, entrepreneur, community mobiliser – and mother to four boys. As Director of Health, she is heading up the vaccination team in Gboko, and she has seen a huge difference in people’s attitudes to the vaccine since the start of UP’s campaign.
Elizabeth says: “As soon as the campaign began, the Primary Health Care Unit recorded an increase in the number of persons turning up for vaccination. Initially, the Gboko LGA vaccination team, reported that 1,969 people had come forward for the vaccine – but during the campaign there was a boost in the number to 7,777 people.”
Image: Thanks to United Purpose’s campaign, many more people came forward to be vaccinated
Another factor that helped boost the vaccination drive was the campaign team’s decision to set up vaccination sites at the campaign locations. This was because they noticed that people tended to turn up en masse to be vaccinated at these campaign locations. After this initiative was implemented, Elizabeth noted:
“The number of people we have vaccinated during this campaign within two days surpasses the number of people vaccinated during the whole exercise previously.”
Read more stories from our COVID emergency response project in West Africa, funded by the Welsh Government:
