Eko Hot Blog reports that the Lagos State Government, in collaboration with its Development Partners, on Saturday, commenced the implementation of another round of house-to-house Polio Outbreak Response across 57 Local Government Areas/Local Council Development Areas of the state.
A statement signed by Dr. Ibrahim A. Mustafa, Permanent Secretary, Lagos State Primary Health Care Board explained that the purpose of the exercise is to give two drops of the Novel Oral Polio vaccine to all children, aged 0 to five years irrespective of their previous immunisation status.
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According to him, the vaccination exercise, in partnership with developmental partners like WHO, UNICEF and others, is designed to boost the immunity of the target group against the circulating poliovirus.
Dr. Mustapha said, “During the exercise, Vitamin A supplement will be administered orally to children aged six months to five years while deworming tablets will be given to children aged one to five years. Also, all children under five will be screened for malnutrition using MUAC tapes.”
He disclosed that the exercise, which commenced on Saturday, July 22, will end on Tuesday, July 25, 2023. He noted that the exercise commences from 7.00 am daily, while stressing that all facilities where children could be found including primary health centres, hospitals, houses, schools, churches, mosques, markets, shopping malls, playgrounds and gated estates, among others, would be visited without exception.
Enjoining Lagos residents to cooperate with the government officials during the exercise by making their children available in order to eradicate other forms of Circulating Poliovirus (CVPV2) currently in some areas of the State, Dr. Mustapha assured the public that the Polio vaccine is not only safe but also free and very effective.
In August 2020, the independent Africa Regional Certification Commission (ARCC) for polio eradication declared Nigeria free of indigenous wild poliovirus.
However, the WHO and UNICEF stressed that achieving this milestone was not the end of the job, noting that all children under five years must continue to be vaccinated against vaccine-preventable diseases.
“This is critical to significantly reduce avoidable mortality in Nigerian children under 5 years old, keep polio permanently out of Nigeria, and ensure better health and well being for future generations,” the United Nations (UN) agencies said.
“Not only is polio vaccination still crucial, all routine vaccinations are critical to children’s survival,” Peter Hawkins, UNICEF Representative in Nigeria, stated.
“We must all work together to strengthen routine immunisation services and ensure that all children under five receive all vaccines, including the polio vaccine.”
“This is not the time for Nigeria to take its foot off the accelerator. This is the time for Nigeria to strengthen its primary health care system, and give routine immunisation a vital boost.”
The last case of wild poliovirus in Africa was detected in 2016 in Nigeria.
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Since 1996, polio eradication efforts have prevented up to 1.8 million children from crippling life-long paralysis and saved approximately 180,000 lives.
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