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From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
Federal Government, on Thursday, announced that 130 cases of Circulating Vaccine-Derived Polio Virus (cVPV2) otherwise known as Polio type 2 have been detected in 47 Local Government Areas (LGAs) across 16 States.
The government, however, admitted that the figure was 82 per cent reduction compared to the figure recorded within same period in 2021 when there was 711 cVPV2 cases.
Executive Director, National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr. Faisal Shuaib, disclosed the development at a quarterly meeting of Northern Traditional Leaders’Committee (NTLC) on PHCs, in Abuja, on Thursday.
He disclosed that Sokoto and Zamfara states are witnessing breakthrough transmissions, stressing that efforts are on to control the transmission as they are conducting polio outbreak response campaigns.
He urged northern traditional rulers not to rest on their oars as they would continue to leverage their influence to increase individual and community demand for all PHC services, particularly Polio and COVID-19 vaccination as well as maternal and child healthcare services.
He also reiterated the fact that COVID-19 is still very much around, hence the need to continue to protect Nigerian families, using the only formidable tool available against the disease.
He said: “As of 4th October, 2022, the number of persons who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 was 41,269,072 (37%) of the total eligible population in Nigeria. Everyday, over 350,000 Nigerians are vaccinated against COVID-19 with the help of traditional rulers.
“It was in our efforts to rapidly ramp up COVID-19 vaccination that we launched S.CALE.S 3.0 strategy in August, which is an evidence-based approach that uses human-centered demand generation approach to address low risk perception of COVID-19 in the country.
“This strategy intensified integration of COVID-19 vaccination with routine immunization and other PHC services, and also adopt state-specific contexts and bottom-up approaches to address bottlenecks in service delivery, communication, accountability, logistics, electronic management of immunization data and supportive supervision.”
Minister of health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, in his remarks highlighted the strategic roles of northern traditional rulers in the delivery of PHC services with specific focus on immunization and other primary health care services.
He acknowledged the roles they played in the fight against Wild Polio Virus (WPV) which culminated in declaration of Nigeria a polio-free country some years ago, and solicited such zeal and commitment in the fight against COVID-19.
He announced that similar collaborations have been extended to the South West and South East geopolitical zones of the country with a view to achieving similar goals.
He said: “Looking back at our health indices in the northern Nigeria before this partnership, I must say that we have made remarkable progress especially in polio eradication and routine immunization. We are still not at optimal performance yet because we still have a lot of work to do to achieve our collective goal of bequeathing PHC system that is responsive to the needs of the people.
“We need to further strengthen our community engagement through traditional rulers to ensure that our people, especially the most vulnerable are protected by being fully vaccinated against Polio and COVID-19 and other childhood diseases.”
He reaffirmed that Federal Government was doing all within its power to provide adequate quantity of COVID-19 vaccines, and assured all eligible Nigerians that there are enough vaccines for first, second and even booster doses of COVID-19 vaccines across all States in Nigeria.
He urged the traditional rulers to continue to encourage their people to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and other vaccine- preventable diseases, disclosing that NPHCDA has integrated all these services to ensure that every vaccination site serves as a one stop site for the vaccination of the entire family.
“We need to quickly increase coverage across all states to achieve our national target of vaccinating at least 70 per cent of eligible populations 18 years and older.”
He commended Nasarawa, Jigawa, Kano and Kaduna States who have the highest fully vaccinated persons and have reached the 70 per cent target of fully vaccinated eligible population for COVID-19, urging other states to emulate these states to enable the country build immunity against COVID-19 and reach the desired national coverage.
He appealed to the Royal Fathers to continue to sensitize their communities about the benefits of immunization and other PHC services, the risk of non-vaccination and in particular, to continue to promote COVID-19 vaccination in the domains.
