By Danjuma Attah, Gombe
The Bauchi Field Office of the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) has appealed to all stakeholders in Gombe State to see themselves as warriors in the fight against polio during this last chance to eradicate the disease in Nigeria.
The Chief of Field Office, Dr Nuzhat Rafique, in an interview with our Correspondent on the sidelines of a two day workshop on addressing malnutrition in Gombe State sounded the alarm and said “2025 is the last year we have a chance to eradicate polio from Nigeria”.
According to her, “the whole world is looking at us and we have to make sure that every child is vaccinated”, she said and added that in Gombe State, the forth coming polio campaign planned for 24th to 30th April, 2025, must take on a warrior like posture involving every stakeholders if the desired result must be achieved.
“The attention of the world is on Nigeria because it is still having circulation of the virus of polio. Nigeria has been reporting cases last year, so we have Nigeria as a high risk country and we have a really serious situation because the burden of the disease. The number in Nigeria is huge”, she revealed.
For Gombe State, she said, “No one should be left behind in this fight and this is only possible if we have inputs right from the household level, from communities, from traditional, religious leaders, LGA Chairmen and deputies, legislators, councillors, the Governor, Deputy, all commissioners, Executive Secretaries. We need everybody to be a warrior in this war”, the UNICEF Chief emphasized.
At the moment, Gombe is burdened by 53,000 children who have never been reached by any type of immunization known as zero doze. 28,000 of these children reside in Dukku, Akko, Nafada, Kaltungo and Yamaltu-Deba LGA’s also described as zero dose LGA’s or high risk LGA’s.
Dr. Nuzhat disclosed that these high risk LGA’s need special support because they are areas where families are not accepting to get their children immunised.
She said, “we need to put in all the efforts, all types of counselling from the household levels, community levels, work with traditional, religious leaders to really go to these houses and convince them to get their children vaccinated because they are putting all children in Nigeria at risk by not being vaccinated. We can not accept that, we have to change the situation to make Nigeria polio free.
“All non compliant houses need to be compliant now. We have to do all the struggle and leave no stone unturned to make these children compliant and treat each and every child most vulnerable, most deprived and most marginalized”, she pointed out.
End.
