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About 3.2 children from five years and below were immunized in the recently concluded immunization campaign mounted by the Kano State government in collaboration with international and local stakeholders, including Rotary Club, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Dangote Foundation.
The renewed campaign against the dreaded and crippling disease by the stakeholders was necessitated by the discovery of some fresh new cases of Wild Polio Virus (WPV) in some human settlements recently liberated from the Boko-Haram terrorist group by Nigerian military.
According to World Health Organisation (WHO), over 20 cases of polio are known to be in existence in three highly populated countries – Nigeria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan – and the four of the 20 cases occurred in Northern Nigerian state of Kano.
A state-wide campaign encoded as Immunization Plus Days (IPDs) was carried in Sunday to Wednesday in 20 local government areas of the state as part of the initiative to totally stamp out the disease.
The mop-up exercise took place in Ajingi, Babeji, Bichi, Dambatta, Makoda, Dawakin-Kudu, Garki, Rogo, Kumbotso, Gaya, Kibiya, Kiru, Kura, Minijibir, Rano, Sumaila, Takai, Wudil, Tudun-Wada, and Ungogo LGAs.
As usual, the state governor, Umar Abdullahi Ganduje, and his deputy, Abubakar Hafiz, led the campaign across the identified LGAs where it was assumed that some missed children could be found.
The Sarkin Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II’s team for the programme was led by the Sarkin Yakin Kano, Wada Aliyu, who cautioned men against preventing their wives from participating in the programme.
Flagging off the campaign in Kibiya LGA, the deputy governor called on parents and guardians in the state to give maximum attention to the health of their children by taking active part in the immunization programme.
Hafiz charged the residents of the localities where the menace of polio could still be found to sustain the earlier successes the state attained by spending almost 36 months without any case of the polio virus.
The major successes which the last IPDs round achieved was the ability to conduct the programme in Karshi settlement which for two years had been having epileptic polio immunization exercise.
One of the major factors for the slow-down of programme in Karshi settlement, a town location in Rogo LGA, was the dispute in respect of the village head title which occurred between two biological brothers.
However, a light eventually came at the end of the tunnel in the last two rounds of the IPDs in December 2016 and January this year as the two gladiators unanimously agreed to sheathe their swords and embrace dialogue towards reviving polio immunization exercise in the area.
Speaking with members of Journalists for Health (JFH) during the just concluded January IPDs, the Primary Health Care Coordinator at the Rogo LGA, Bilyamynu Gambo Zubairu, confirmed that normalcy had gradually returned in the area since last year Dec. IPDs when 754 representing 51 percent of the 1,486 target population were immunized at 22 of the 26 settlements in the community.
Zubairu explained further that the January IPDs received the required boost as the health workers were able to immunize under five children even more than 100 percent targeted population of 1,486, linking the development to the active participation of the two brothers from the royal family, Ado and Ibrahim who involved in the community mobilization and implementation process.
