Polio: Ekiti Targets 700,000 Children For Immunization
Determined to prevent Polio epidemic in Ekiti State, the State government is to capture a total of 700,000 children below the age five in the polio immunization exercise under the National Immunization Plus
Days(NIPDS) .
The programme, which will hold between March 25 to 28, 2017, is to be carried out by the state Primary Health Care Development Agency with the support of all the critical stakeholders, including traditional rulers, religious leaders across the 177 wards of the state .
The State Director of the agency, Dr Joshua Ileke, who spoke in Ado Ekiti , on Thursday during a stakeholders’
meeting held in preparation for the programme , lamented that the relisting of the country as a polio infested nation by World Health Orgnisation as worrisome and intolerable .
He said Ekiti has a population of 3.3 million going by the 2003 census and that about 22% of this population are below age five, which he said this substantial population cannot be treated with disdain for Nigeria to maintain a healthy population.
“Nigeria was declared polio free in 2014 and this we maintained till 2016 before another outbreak was noticed in Borno State. We were expecting a polio-free certificate from WHO when this happened and
Nigeria had to be relisted again as a nation where polio is endemic.
“We were able to maintain this for two years before this virus reared its ugly head last year September. Apart from the fact that this exercise will take place in all the 295 health facilities and their outreaches across Ekiti, we are also visiting all households, schools , churches , markets to ensure that no child is left unimmunized.
“Though, we have not recorded any case of polio victim in Ekiti for close to 20 years, but we have to prevent it , because only one percent of children that are attacked show paralysis with others serving as carriers who can spread it through sneezing , coughing and stooling to others.
“We are choosing children below age 5 as the target because they are the most vulnerable, though I am not saying other age groups can’t contact it, but it is more dangerous in children of that ages”, he said.
He called on traditional and religious leaders to sensitize theirsubjects, so that they can make their children available to health personnel for the success of the exercise.
Ileke particularly appealed to the leaders of Ebira and Hausa Communities, who are predominantly rural dwellers to observe the exercise to make Nigeria free of this killer disease.
“Some of our people used to hide their children due to religious inclinations, this is wrong and dangerous because children that are not well immunized could serve as carriers that can spread the virus to others. So, whoever does this is a potential danger to wherever he lives”.
END
