Jigawa to immunize 1.7m children against polio

By Ahmed Rufa’i

The Jigawa State government has resolved to continue administering polio vaccine after nine years without single case of the disease in the state.

The Director of the state’s Primary Health care Development Agency, Dr Sambo Shehu disclosed this to reporters in his office.

He said: “The State government has targeted over 1.7 million children to be immunized against polio beginning from June 28.

Dr Sambo explained that the state government took the decision in order to prevent the new outbreak and strengthen children’s immune system against the disease.

“Jigawa State government is ready to implement polio eradication programme, to begin with a campaign on June 28 to July 3, 2021. We shifted the date from July 19 due to local governments’ elections,” he said.

He noted that the exercise will cover 27 local government areas across the state. He urged parents, religious and traditional leaders to co-operate with the agency for the success of the exercise.

The Director maintained that about 13,000 ad-hoc and agency members of staff would be deployed for the exercise, including 3,060 house-to-house team that have three people in each team, 546 special team and 776 members of staff from the hospital.