No fewer than 817,300 under five children will benefit from the second phase of Polio Outbreak Response in Gombe State.
Declaring the response open on Friday, Deputy Governor, Dr Manassah Jatau, disclosed that the immunisation would cater for children across the 11 local government areas in the state within the period of four days.
Jatau explained that to achieve this, all Chairmen of the Local Government Task Force on Immunisation and Primary Health Care would ensure that eligible children in their respective LGAs were identified and vaccinated.
According to him, they should actively participate, monitor and overcome any challenge that may arise during the exercise, adding that they must not fail.
Jatau said, “The present administration of His Excellency, Governor Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya, which has health as its priority goal number one conducted several rounds of the Outbreak Response in the last one year. The campaigns have been encouraging and Government has shown strong political will to ensure the success of the campaign.
“To succeed, there is a compelling need for all of us and other stakeholders to engage continuously in these vaccination campaigns so as to totally eradicate Polio from our environment as was the case of the dreaded Smallpox.”
Also, the Commissioner for Health, Dr Habu Dahiru, represented by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Alh. Musa Filiya, pointed out that the government was fully committed to the provision of quality health care to its residents.
While calling on the parents, guardians and the media to continue to support the campaign towards ensuring the safety of the people especially the children within the set age, Dahiru urged for more support.
“Let me appreciate the Traditional Rulers, Community leaders for fully supporting the fight against preventable diseases,” Dahiru said.
On his part, the Executive Secretary, Dr Shuaibu Abdulrahaman, while presenting an update of the vaccination campaign activities, revealed that the January Outbreak Response witnessed tremendous success in comparison to September 2021 coverage.
Abdulrahaman attributed the successes to the commitment of Traditional Rulers, strong coordination of health workers, intense partnership with NGOs, and full attendance of participants at different training.
According to him, “During the January OBR 1, with a target population of 816,272 eligible children, 815,619 eligible children were immunised giving a state coverage of 100% with 5% vaccine wastage rate. No LGA had coverage of less than 90%.
“There was a decrease in the trend of non-compliance since this round 21 pending households involving 38 children were recorded compared to 27 pending households involving 52 children last round of Ipads. No LGA failed LQAS.”
