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Jigawa State Declared Polio Free

KANO, NIGERIA - APRIL 12: A Nigerian schoolboy is vaccinated against polio during a mass nationwide polio inoculation April 12, 2005, in Kano, Nigeria. International aid workers once hoped to have polio eradicated off the face of the Earth by April 2005, the 50th anniversary of the approval of the polio vaccine. But recent efforts by some Nigerian Muslim leaders to stop Western inoculation programs have allowed polio to endure. Creating new victims even while hundreds of thousands of Nigerians suffer from the disease. Opportunities are scarce for polio sufferers, but programs like the Polio Victims Association allow them to make a small living, welding hand-cranked polio bicycles and other projects for a small salary. Nigeria is undergoing a massive countrywide push to inoculate every child under five - nearly 40 million doses of polio vaccine countrywide in four days. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images)

Executive Secretary of the Jigawa Primary Healthcare Development Agency (JSPHDA), Dr Kabir Ibrahim has stated during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Dutse on Thursday that the state has not recorded any new polio case in six years.

Poliomyelitis also known as polio is an infectious decease that leads to muscle weakness. This then leads to the person’s inability to move mostly the legs but in rare cases the neck and head muscles and diaphragm.

He said concerted efforts of the state government, traditional institution and other relevant stakeholders played a great role in tackling the disease.

The official, however, decried what he called the nonchalant attitude of some parents on the impotance of polio immunisation.

He added that the agency, in collaboration with other stakeholders, are doing their best in educating people on the need and importance of the immunization.

“The major challenge we are facing concerning polio immunization is that some people have poor health seeking behavior.

“Sometimes, you have to put pressure on patents, go to the villages and communities, to beg them to provide immunisation services for their children.

“Immunisation is supposed to be done in hospitals, but yet you have go to these villages and communities to beg sometimes.

“Notwithstanding, we are still educating such category of parents on the need to accept polio and other routine immunizations, and we are recording improvement in such regard,” he said.

The executive secretary, therefore, urged all parents across the state to desist from acts capable of hampering efforts in eradicating the disease.

Ibrahim also commended traditional, religious leaders and relevant stakeholders for working as “change agents” and for sensitising residents on polio and other routine immunisations in the state.