The Sokoto State Primary Healthcare Development Agency (SSPHCDA) has identified politics, religion belief, insecurity and political differences as part of many factors hindering the success of polio and other child killer diseases immunization in the state.
This was disclosed during a sensitization meeting between officials of the agency, UNICEF, National Orientation Agency (NOA) and members of Journalists Against Polio (JAP), held in Sokoto.
In a documentary presentation by the Agency’s Director of Advocacy and Communications, Bello Balarabe Yabo indicated that majority of households approached for immunization exercise were declined to be immunized without convincing reasons.
Yabo who represented the Agency’s Executive Secretary, Alhaji Adamu Romo said the statistics were drawn from 16 Local Government Areas of the state where the exercise was targeted.
He said other reasons given by some households include participate in too many rounds, reject on self-volition, not felt the need to partake in the immunization exercise while others could not give reasons for their rejections.
Speaking on the status of surveillance in the state, Yabo added that as at end of August last year, the State has reported 184 Acute Flaccid Paralysis compared to 383 same time in 2017.
He recalled that the, last case of Wide Type of Virus (WTV) in the state remain September 2012 in Wurno Local Government Areas of the state while there is no record of Circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type-2 in human.
“Nigeria has a large population at risk of Vaccine Preventable Diseases (VPDs). 4,932 confirmed cases with measles and 139 confirmed cases of yellow fever were reported in 2018 while 213 suspected cases with 16 deaths were also reported for CSM between the last quarter of 2018 and February 2019.” Yabo further explained.
He noted that there are recurrent outbreaks of measles, yellow fever and meningitis after campaign due to states not achieving set percentage coverage.
Earlier, the Director National Orientation Agency in the state, Alhaji Abubakar Danchadi, said the agency will partner with relevant stakeholders to ensure success in eradicating polio in the state. He said the agency has dispatched a team to further enlighten residents of the state on the danger of polio and other child killer diseases in the state.
According to Danchadi: “the national orientation agency has representatives across the twenty three local government area in the state, and they are to enlighten parents and guardians on the need to allow their children to be vaccinated.” He however appealed to members of the public to fully participate in the upcoming exercise which he said will comes up later in the month.