ABSTRACT

                The process of protecting the body against disease by means of vaccines or serum (immunization) is the most cost effective of all the health intervention developed so far. However, the poorest countries and those affected by war or civil disturbance continue to have low immunization coverage contributing at least 2 million child hood deaths per year. Objective of the present study was to assess factors affecting utilization of EPI service among mothers in Adiremets town, Welkayt woreda, Humera zone, Tigray region, North West Ethiopia in 2012. Institution based cross- sectional study was conducted  in  Welkayt woreda, Humera  Zone, North West Tigray of  Ethiopia and data was collected  from 19^th to 29^th, Feb. 2013 Consecutively; the necessary data was collected from EPI card, maternal history and observation for the presences or absence of BCG scar. From the 294 mothers, 68.4% have knowledge about EPI (know at least of the 8 VPDs), 97.6% positive attitude towards EPI, while 94.4% have positive attitude towards the vaccinators. As to the general benefit of EPI, 82.3% replied that vaccination is given to protect diseases, 11.6% answered to cure a disease, while 6.1% don’t know the general use of vaccines. Out of the same total number of children 67% were fully immunized (DPT3, measles) and 78% were vaccinated against measles. The number of children with three doses of DPT, OPV, PCV were 82.6% While the overall dropout rate was 24.6%, the drop-out-rate between DPT3/PCV3/OPV3 and measles was 19%. From the 280 children who visited the nearby health facility, then returned without any vaccination and this makes the missed opportunity rate to be 3.6%. In this study only 67% of the children were fully immunized leaving 24.8% overall dropout rate and 8.2% having no even a single vaccination. Hence, these 33% of the children could be targets for any of the six VPDs. Even if maternal TT2+ coverage is 80.6% ,the fact that the other 19.4% are not vaccinate could put both the mothers and new born at risk of contracting tetanus.

Key words: utilization of EPI, awareness, Immunization, Antenatal care.