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Polio vaccines are now safe –Shekarau
Governor Ibrahim
Shekarau of Kano
State says the gover-nment was resuming polio immunisation in the area following its conviction that the vaccines being admini-stered were safe.
He told the people in Takai town in a ceremony to mark the resumption of the vaccination that government was not compelled by any-body to do so and assured the people that government would always investigate any programme which raised any doubts about their safety and welfare.
The government had about 11 months ago dire-cted the people to reject polio vaccines after a Muslim scholar, Dr Datti Ahmed, who is also a medical doctor, alle-ged that the vaccine being administered contained anti-fertility materials, thus sca-ring mostly Muslims away from the vaccination.
As the controversy rag-ed, Nigeria was accused by the international community of exporting wild polio virus to other countries and des-pite several measures by the federal government to prove the safety of the vaccines, the Kano State government was not convinced, but went abroad to procure its own vaccines.
Governor Shekarau who said enough vaccines had now been procured from Ind-onesia, advised the people to ensure that their children were immunised and resta-rted the vaccination by dro-pping oral polio vaccines into the mouths of Mohammed Sagir and Maryam Sagir, both children of the Commi-ssioner for Water Resources, Alhaji Salihu Sagir.
The Minister of Health, Professor Eyitayo Lambo, represented by Dr Dere Awosika, said the resumption of polio immunisation in Kano State would mark the end of polio in Nigeria. “Children will drink and cheer in Kano as the government is out to eradicate polio.”
The Emir of Kano, Alhaji Ado Bayero, represented by Wamban Kano, Alhaji Abbas Sanusi, urged the entire pe-ople of the state to embrace the immunisation because polio constitutes the highest threat against the lives of children.
Nigeria is reported to now accounts for about 80 percent of new cases and 10 polio-free African nations have been reinfected and United Nations officials, who have voiced mounting concern over the past year, expressed relief as health workers began the door-to-door campaign which aims to reach four million children in the next few days.
“It’s the beginning of the very final push to eradicate polio from Nigeria and the world,” said Gerrit Berger, spokesman for the UN child-ren’s agency, UNICEF. “Polio will have no hiding place any more from today.”
Last month, the WHO announced an emergency immunisation campaign of 74 million children across Africa to try to rescue its goal of wiping out polio worldwide by 2005.
A virus that invades the nervous system and can cause total paralysis or death causes polio, which mainly affects children under five. The disease is considered endemic in only six countries - Afghanistan, Egypt, India, Niger, Nigeria, and Pakistan.
When the eradication drive was launched in 1988, polio was a serious problem in 125 countries. |
