Oyo Celebrates Absence Of Polio For 7 Years

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GOV ABIOLA AJIMOBI OF OYO STATE

By; BAYO AKAMO, Ibadan
Oyo State Government at the weekend declared that the state is now free of Polio epidemic as the state has not recorded any polio outbreak for the past seven years.
The state Commissioner for Health, Dr Azeez Adeduntan disclosed this while speaking at the the flag-off of the first round of the 2017 National Immunization Plus Days (NIPDs) held at the secretariat of Oyo West Local Government, Ojongbodu Oyo town.
The Commissioner said the state government’s efforts towards the eradication of polio in the state has yielded positive results and is still yielding fruits,
Dr Adeduntan pointed out that the state government is ready to strengthen the collaboration between it and the local governments in the state to ensure that immunization services reach every child in the state.
Specifically, he said the state “government is set to make immunization services the right of every child and not a privilege,  adding that the “NIPDs campaign was not only on eradication of polio but on all vaccine preventable diseases as children are most susceptible to infections during the early childhood years”.
According to him, the National Immunization Plus Days (NIPDs) is a supplemental immunization campaign geared to ensure herd immunity among the under five years children against poliomyelitis and towards the eradication of the disease in Nigeria.
“The intervention and target age group includes women of child bearing ages against tetanus toxoid and health promotion, children of 0-59 months for oral polio and all missed routine antigens and children of 0-11 months for due and missed routine antigens”.
While calling on parents especially the mothers to make their children from ages 0-5 years available for the first round of immunization between March 25 and 28, 2017, he said it has been scientifically proven that immunization does not kill or affect children negatively against the backdrop of some cultural belief.
The Commissioner urged all mothers in the state to make sure they complete all stipulated immunization from birth for their children so that the efforts of the State government will not be fruitless.

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