Categories: News

Nomadic Group Leads Campaign Against Polio In Kano

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)

Several nomadic groups in Kano State have formed a platform, Nomadic Jauros for Health, to fight against polio in the State and protect its borders from recurrence of polio epidemic.

The Chairman of the group, Alhaji Idris Adamu, unveiled the group on Monday at a town hall meeting organised by the state Ministry of Health, ahead of the January polio immunisation exercise.

He said that although many of the members had been involved in mobilisation for the exercise for long, the group was recently formed as part of their social responsibility.

“We identified our individual roles in fighting the virus and saw the need to unite against it to strengthen the awareness campaign,” he said.

Adamu, however, said the group seeks the support of the Ministry and all stakeholders in polio awareness campaign, in order to be fully on board.

“Our union will provide every information about new nomadic groups coming into the state from other states and countries in order to ensure full immunization for their children,” he said.

” We believe that if the new groups are fully immunized, there would be no fear of recurrence of the virus and even if they move to other places, those places will be safe too,” Adamu explained.

The State Team Lead for the United Nations Children’s Fund, Alhaji Kabiru Rabiu, also pledged to support and work with the nomads to achieve a polio free Kano.