Delta State Governor, Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan has identified activities of Boko Haram members as potential threat against the eradication of polio in Nigeria and called for vigilance from states where there are no incidences of polio virus.Governor Uduaghan made the observation Thursday in Sapele during the 2014 First Quarter Polio Eradication/Sensitization Campaign in Delta State.
According to him, Nigeria ranks among Afghanistan and Pakistan as countries that still have cases of polio in the world, stating that while the two countries have crises related to war, the activities of Boko Haram members in Nigeria were hampering the total eradication of the polio virus and making Nigerians to migrate to safer states.
While noting that no incident of polio has been witnessed in Delta State for the past five years, the Governor called for vigilance so as to ensure that children are immunized against the dreaded disease.
“Today, there is crisis in some parts of the North, so there will be tendency that people might migrate to this part of the country, this is why we must be vigilant,” the Governor said, adding “crisis does not help anybody, we must avoid trouble, anywhere there is war, there is displacement.” While urging Deltans to ensure that their environment is clean as a way of checking the spread of diseases, the governor charged all stakeholders to pay more attention to routine immunization for their children.
The Commissioner for Health in the state, Dr Joseph Otumara in an address, stated that the sensitization campaign was a strategy aimed at improving the polio vaccination coverage of children aged between 0-59 months in the collective effort towards the eradication of the crippling Poliomyelitis infection.
He state that the immunization exercise was to interrupt the transmission of the polio virus and eradicate the disease, noting that polio cases has been reduced from 212 which was reported in the year 2012 to one case reported in 2014 in Nigeria. The local government chairman, traditional rulers and operators in the health sector delivered goodwill messages at the occasion that featured the immunization of children by the Governor and other stakeholders.
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