Adamawa Set For Fresh Polio Vaccination

Adamawa State is set to begin a fresh round of vaccination against polio.

The Adamawa State Primary Health Care Development Agency (ADSPHCDA) , which disclosed this on Monday, said the exercise will begin this Thursday, December 14 and ends on 17th.

The Executive Chairman of ADSPHDA, Dr Sulaiman Sa’adu Bashir, who addressed a news conference on the planned vaccination exercise, said it will be the third round in the last four months.

He said more than one million children were vaccinated against polio during each of the previous rounds, indicating that a similar number of children would be covered in the planned fresh exercise.

“In this agency, prevention is our emphasis,” the ADSPHCDA chairman asserted, adding that the agency has regularly supervised immunisation exercises to achieve such optimum preventive status.

He further disclosed that 1,811 teams of officials will be deployed to the 21 Local Government Areas of the state for the coming vaccination round.

He explained that Adamawa is particular about anti-polio vaccination because although the state has no issue with the virus, it is put at risk by states and other communities that interact with the state.

Giving a background to the newsmen, who covered the Monday press conference, the ADSPHCDA boss said last polio vaccination took place between November 12 and November 15; while the round before then had been conducted from September 29 to October 2, all being within the last four months.

He said the past exercises had been highly successful, as coverage was as high as 102 percent.

According to him, while 1,322,695 children were targeted in the last round; 1,345,872 were actually reached, giving a 102 percent coverage success.

He said the successes were achieved because although there were pockets of resistance to immunisation, robust campaigns involving all stakeholders succeeded in breaking barriers and boosting acceptance.