DigitalSENSE Business News reports that Hajiya Jibril told newsmen who were monitoring the first round of the 2014 Four-Day Polio Immunisation Campaign which kicked off on Saturday, January 25, 2014.
Jibril also revealed that 242 out of the cases had been resolved by the officials conducting the exercise.
“Efforts are also ongoing to resolve the remaining cases, with a view to ensuring that all the eligible children of zero to five years of age are fully immunised,” she said.
The director also said that 10,649 children had already been immunised as at January 25, 2014, out of the 93,720 children targeted for the exercise.
She further commended the local government for providing N700,000 worth of additional drugs and gifts for the children, such as candies. “The gesture is encouraging the parents to allow their children to be immunised against the dreaded disease,” Jibril said.
The Director of Health in Gada Local Government, Alhaji Hassan Yabo, said the local government had also replicated what Illela local government did, especially by providing “N700,000 worth of additional drugs and children’s gifts to serve as incentives to the parents.”
Further, Yabo said, 106,160 children of zero to five years of age had been targeted in the area for the exercise. “We were able to fully immunise 36,012 children on the first day of the exercise on January 25, this year. “So far, we have not recorded any cases of non-compliance or rejection of the polio vaccines by parents,” he said.
DigitalSENSE Business News recalls that in late 18th century the word came from Latin vaccinus, from vacca ‘cow’ because of the early use of the cowpox virus against smallpox. Also, experts have defined vaccine as a biological preparation that improves immunity to a particular disease. A vaccine typically contains an agent that resembles a disease-causing microorganism and is often made from weakened or killed forms of the microbe, its toxins or one of its surface proteins.
The agent stimulates the body’s immune system to recognize the agent as foreign, destroy it, and keep a record of it, so that the immune system could more easily recognize and destroy any of these microorganisms that it later encounters.
Vaccines, could be prophylactic for example to prevent or ameliorate the effects of a future infection by any natural or ‘wild’ pathogen.
Based on the foregoing that DigitalSENSE Business News emphasises that over the years this issue of polio vaccines rejection has been a re-occurring dilemma that should be nipped in the bud, by all well-meaning Nigerians, especially the leadership of this country from the northern part without any prejudice.
Noteworthy is that in July 2003, for instance, the polio immunization was brought to a halt over alleged religious teachings and believes.
In the first quarter of 2004, a week-long tour to Indonesia, India, and South Africa by a Federal Government delegation charged with conducting tests on polio vaccines used for immunisation in the country concluded its tour.
They were made up of health officials nominated by the government and Jama’atu Nasril Islam, an Islamic organisation in addition to some carefully selected Muslim leaders.
The federal government and Nigerians at large had anticipated that with this kind of high-powered delegation the issues of doubt on efficacy of polio vaccines, mostly in Nigeria will be a thing of the past, moreso on claims in some quarters of the northern muslim that the vaccines contain anti-fertility agents as well as the virus that instigate AIDS.
Scientifically, vaccines may not guarantee complete protection from a disease, but evidently is crucial because the host’s immune system simply does not respond adequately or at all. This may be due to a lowered immunity in general due to presence of diabetes, steroid use, HIV infection, age or because the host’s immune system does not have a B cell capable of generating antibodies to that antigen.
The fact remains that if we must reduce drastically the level of handicapped Nigerians from the northern part of the country who throng the southern part of Nigeria for begging practices among other social vices; the political will must be exhibited to nip this rejection in the bud, once for all and give the upcoming generation an everlasting opportunity to live their lives in full and healthy too.
This could be achieved by sustained enlightenment in local parlance instead of limiting such campaign to when the need arises, accompanied with the incentives as exhibited by some local governments in Sokoto recently.
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