National Immunization Plus days will kick-off from Saturday 16th September, according to information shared with the media during a one-day media orientation meeting in Port Harcourt, organised by the Rivers State Primary Health Care Management Board.
The State Health Educator, Dr Babbo Diana, who spoke during the orientation meeting in Preparation for the Up-coming National Immunization plus days, called on media practitioners to spread the word about the need for parents and guardians to grant health workers the needed access to their children.
Babbo, said during this period, Children aged 5 and below will be vaccinated against the circulating variant of polio virus, that is currently ravaging countries in sub Saharan Africa.
She noted that health workers will move from house to house, markets, churches and every public place to vaccinate children, who would be marked afterwards including their houses. While vaccination will also take place simultaneously at health centres across the state.
Babbo, reiterated that the marking of Children and houses are important to ensure efficiency because every child will require two drops of the vaccine.
Africa Update reports that the orientation programme for media practitioners held at the Conference hall of the PHALGA sickbay at Port Harcourt City Council on September 13.
Recall that the World Health Organization (WHO) had last month announced that 51 new cases of Circulating Variant Polio Virus (cVPV2) had been detected in Nigeria.
The WHO Country Representative in Nigeria, Dr. Walter Mulombo, who disclosed at a strategic meeting in Kaduna State, said the cases were detected between January and August 13 this year.
The meeting was organised by the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) in collaboration with the Sultan Foundation for traditional leaders of inaccessible communities in the North-West.
North-West, according to Mulombo, accounted for 92 percent of the new cases.
The WHO official revealed that 47 of the cases were recorded in 15 local government areas in the region that has been under attacks from bandits since 2019.
He decried the effects of insecurity on access to health services in the North-West, leading to a high rate of maternal and infant mortality in the region.
The United Nations health agency certified Nigeria wild polio-free in August 2020.
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