Sokoto to immunise 1.8m children against polio.

Sokoto State Government says it is targeting no fewer than 1.8 million children, aged from 0 to 5 years in the ongoing four days polio immunisation in the state.

The State Deputy Governor, Ahaji Ahmed Aliyu, made the disclosure to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Sokoto on Sunday.

Aliyu, who is also the Chairman of the State’s Task Force on polio immunisation, said that the exercise, which commenced on Saturday, would end on Tuesday.

He said efforts were on to achive over 100 per cent coverage of the targeted children in all the 23 local government areas of the state.

The deputy governor said that the state government had distributed about 1.83 million doses of Oral Polio Vaccines (OPV) across the state.

Aliyu said that no fewer than 9,429 health personnel were conducting the exercise.

Also, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health, Alhaji Almustapha Othman, also told NAN that measures had been put in place to ensure the full acceptance of the exercise by parents.

Othman expressed happiness that parents in the state were now wholly accepting the exercise.

In his remarks, the Executive Secretary, State Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Dr Sani Labaran, also explained that social mobilisation of all the residents had been intensified.

This, Labaran said, was to shore up the acceptance of the OPV by the parents, adding that it was safe.

Polio: FG Releases N9.8bn For Polio; To Immunise 56m Children

The Federal Government yesterday said it would release N9.8 billion for polio vaccines and other related activities, even as it unveiled plans to immunise over 56 million children by November 2016.

The N9.8 billion to be released is exclusive of the N6.5 billion approved by the Ministry of Finance when the polio crisis started. The Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole, who disclosed this at a briefing in Abuja, said the money would be used to execute the polio response plan developed by the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, NPHCDA, and its partners.

Adewole, however, raised alarm that there was high risk of further spread of the virus due to population movement within and around the states. The response plan, according to the Minister, include five rounds of polio campaign, three of which will be focused on 16 northern states and two to be conducted nationwide.

The campaigns, he noted, would be synchronized with the affected regions and provinces in Chad, Niger and Cameroun.

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http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/08/polio-fg-releases-n9-8bn-polio-immunise-56m-children/