North: INSECURITY, OTHER FACTORS TO IMPEDE POLIO ERADICATION

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From AMOS TAUNA, Kaduna
Insecurity and inaccessibility of certain areas may stand in the way of ensuring total eradication of polio particularly in the northern part of the country, chairman Kaduna State Action Committee on the Eradication of Polio, Alhaji Mustapha Jumare has observed.
Already, he said, a committee comprising of deputy governors, commissioners of health, directors in the ministries of health, health personnel, security agents and chairmen of local government areas of the affected states of Kaduna, Katsina and Kano would converge to strategize on areas of ensuring effective coverage and how efforts could be adopted towards the eradication of the virus.
Speaking at the Emergency Operation Center Support, he explained that the virus has shifted from the metropolitan cities to rural areas particularly border areas, where less emphases is paid by vaccinating personnel thereby posing great danger to the benchmark already postulated to eradicate the virus at the end of this year with about 60 cases in the affected states.
He identified team selection and poor performance as another factor militating against the eradication of the virus in the affected areas, stressing that some teams are not performing up to stipulated standards thereby affecting the objective of ensuring total eradication of the virus in the north.
Alhaji Jumare noted that funding for the exercise in Kaduna State has been well coordinated with money being deducted at source at local governments and the state thereby enabling the exercise to be executed without much hitch.
Local government chairmen and other health personnel in Kaduna State, he said, are to be enlightened on the strategies to be adopted so that they would be able to play a prominent role in the eradication of the virus in the affected areas.
The meeting had in attendance traditional rulers, personnel from the state ministry of health, local government areas of the state and officials of the World Health Organization (WHO).

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