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Nigeria, a major polio virus carrier - Turai

Tuesday, 29 July 2008

Nigeria remains the only polio endemic country in Africa and one of four remaining polio endemic countries globally. The First Lady of Nigeria, Hajia Turai Umar Yar’adua made this statement when she had interactive meeting with some wives of Governors, on ‘How to Improve Maternal and Child Health and Eradication of Polio in Nigeria, in her office today.

Hajia Turai averred that health is on the priority list of this administration, hence the rationale for government huge investment on health sector, particularly on immunization activities. This meeting came when President Umar Yar’adua promised to support polio eradication out of Nigeria by the end of 2009.

She described poor performance of health care system, particularly at the local level, as one of the major reasons many children in the country do not have access to health services.

The First Lady urged the Governors’ Wives to rally round all stakeholders, government and developmental partners, in their bids to immunize children against polio and other vaccine preventable diseases. With this Nigeria can meet new global target of interrupting the wild polio virus from Nigeria by 2009.

Speaking at the meeting, the Executive Director of National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr. Titilola .I. Koleoso- Adelekan said currently, fifteen states are endemic with Wild Polio Virus, these are all the states in the North West (Kano, Katsina, Kaduna, Kebbi, Jigawa, Sokoto and Zamfara States); four states in North East i.e. Borno, Bauchi, Gombe and Yobe; two in the North Central i.e. FCT and Niger as well as Enugu and Oyo states from Southern parts.

She said the First Lady and wives of the Governors could champion for health particularly in the following areas; advocacy to State and LGA Executives and Policy Makers, Media Campaigns, Community Sensitization and Mobilization.

Mrs. Koleoso-Adelekan disclosed that incidences of very low immunization coverage continue to sustain high occurrence and out breaks of vaccine Preventable Diseases and Wild Polio Virus. She said there is upsurge in the number of WPV cases, as at Friday, 25th of July there are 508 WPV cases reported in 22 states (less than 200 cases were reported during the same period last year).

Minister of Health, Dr. Hassan Lawal said Nigeria is one of the major carriers of polio virus, but with support of Wives of State Governors, who are close to the grassroots, the virus will efface. He called on the State Governments to allocate available funds to the health sector, which is quite minimal.

In attendance were Wives of Governors from Bauchi, Borno, Kaduna, Katsina, Kano, Sokoto and Zamfara States as well as development partners.

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