Factors Associated with Incomplete Vaccination Coverage amongst Children Aged 12-23 Months in the Ngaoundere Rural Health District, Adamawa Region-Cameroon

Abstract

Cameroon, despite the fact that vaccines are administered without any cost, many children remain unvaccinated or incompletely vaccinated. That is why the aim of the study was to identify the factors associated to incomplete vaccination coverage of children aged 12-23 months in the Ngaoundere Rural health. A cross-sectional household survey was conducted whereby mothers of children aged 12-23months were enrolled. A multi-stage sampling was used. Selected mothers were interviewed and their children’s vaccination cards checked to obtain information on the vaccines received. Amongst these children, 384 (95,5%) had vaccination cards while 18 (4,5%) did not have. A pre-tested questionnaire was used and data analysis was done using the 25th version of SPSS software. Bivariate and multivariate analysis was done to assess the factors of incomplete vaccination coverage. A total of 402 mother-child pairs were sampled and the analysis revealed that 30,3% children were incompletely vaccinated while 69,7% of children were completely vaccinated. The immunization coverages varied for each vaccine: 95,8% for BCG; 95,8% for DPT 1; 83,1% for DPT 3; 69,7% for MR1 and 40,2% for MR2 vaccine. The factors that were significantly associated with incomplete immunization coverage are: low educational level of the mother, home delivery and the absence of a vaccination site in the community. This article proposes appropriate measures to be implemented by policy makers and stake holders to reach out to more children in order to improve on the immunization coverages of the different vaccines.