Huda Salah Abdelrahim Elhassan
Khartoum University, faculty of medicine, Sudan
Title: Factors affecting immunization coverage among children aged 12-35 months in Kassala
Biography
Biography: Huda Salah Abdelrahim Elhassan
Abstract
Immunization remains one of the most important public health interventions and cost effective strategies to reduce child mortality and morbidity associated with infectious diseases. A descriptive cross-sectional community based survey was conducted in Kassala locality from November 2017 to January 2018. A modified World Health Organization-Expanded Program on Immunization cluster sampling methods were used for household selection. A total 347 children aged 12 to 35 months were included in the study. Data were collected by using a pre-tested, interviewer administered questionnaire. Bivariate analysis was employed to identify factors associated with full immunization coverage and multiple binary logistic regression analysis was performed for those factors that showed statistically significant association in bivariate analysis and investigate independent predictors by controlling for possible confounders and significances of all tests were decided at p-value of 0.05. Number of fully immunized children was 277(79.8%) according to mother recall, 205(59.1%) were fully vaccinated according to vaccination cards . factors significantly associated with vaccination status of children were: age of the child in months (OR 1.09, 95%CI: 1.04_1.13) available vaccination center (OR .323, 95%CI: .155_.67), walking time to the nearest vaccination center less than 30 minutes (OR5.50, 95%CI: 2.87_10.5) and source of information about vaccination date by family members/friends/ neighbors (OR 3.81, 95%CI: 1.44_10.09). Despite improvement immunization coverage is still low. Age of child, availability of vaccination center and accessibility were the major predictors of children vaccination status.