IMPACT OF NATIONAL IMMUNIZATION DAYS ON POLIO-RELATED KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE OF URBAN WOMEN IN BANGLADESH

Bangladesh began to hold National Immunization Days (NIDs) from 1995 a s part of the country's goat to eradicate poliomyelitis by the turn of the century. The NIDs brought together government agencies, the media , voluntary organisations and individual volunteers in social mobiliza tion and service delivery activities. This paper assesses the impact o f the first two polio NIDs in terms of the immunization coverage and c hange in knowledge about the disease among women living in Dhaka city, the capital of the country. Data were collected through pre-and post- NID cross-sectional surveys in a sample of one area of Dhaka city whic h included slum and non-slum households. Knowledge data were collected from 525 women with at least one child aged less than five years. The oral polio vaccine (OPV) coverage during NIDs was obtained from 720 c hildren. Knowledge of polio as a vaccine preventable disease increased after NIDs among both slum and non-slum women. The knowledge gap betw een the two groups was significantly reduced. Field workers, who regul arly visit women at their homes to promote health and family planning services, were the main source of information for the slum women while television was cited as the most important source of information by n on-slum women. The study revealed that 88% of children under five year s received at least one dose of oral polio vaccine (OPV) during NIDs, and 67% received two stipulated doses with no significant differences between slum (65%) and non-slum (69%) groups. In addition, 68% of the children contacted during the NIDs were given vitamin A supplementatio n. The study suggests that strategies like NID can be effectively used to tap into community resources and to generate political commitments for health programmes.