Lagos to immunise 4.8 million children this weekend

Posted by Wole Oyebade, Guradian | 10 years ago | 3,901 times



TO further reduce child sicknesses and deaths in the state, no fewer than 4,795,312 under-five children will be targeted in Lagos, as the first round of 2014 National Immunisation Plus Days (NIPDs) campaign begins this weekend.

    The campaign holds in Lagos, like other states of the federation, between March 1 and 4, 2014.

    The immunisation campaign is to ensure every child is given the opportunity to be vaccinated against preventable childhood killer diseases such as poliomyelitis, tuberculosis, diphteria, whooping cough, tetanus, hepatitis, yellow fever and measles.

    At a briefing, ahead of the programme beginning this Saturday, Special Adviser to the State Governor on Public Health, Dr Yewande Adeshina said Lagos State has completed all arrangements, including availability of the bivalent Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV), to ensure a successful campaign.

   Adeshina stressed that polio vaccine is very safe and well tolerated by children.

   According to her, vaccinators have been trained to give only two drops of the OPV vaccine into the child’s mouth, followed by the marking of the left little finger of the child.

  She said: “The service is free and the vaccine effective. All children ages 0-59 months will receive OPV, irrespective of their previous immunisation status.”

    The nationwide exercise is in collaboration with the Federal Government, United Nations and other development partners.

    Adeshina said while Lagos has not recorded any case of Wild Polio Virus since last December 2013, the continuous immunisation exercise is important, especially for its prevalence in Northern part of the country (53 cases recorded in 2013) and daily influx of migrants into Lagos.

  She said: “The state continues to address, among others, the challenges associated with a huge number of migrants on daily basis, which contributes in no small measures to the number of un-immunised children.

  “But as parents, caregivers, guardians, community leaders and rulers, we should ensure that all under-five children living in our environment are adequately immunised as cases of rejection by parents and caregivers constitute a risk to other children in the same neighbourhood.

  “This four-day campaign, targeting 4,795,312 children less than five years of age would be implemented by 2,174 house-to-house teams, 1,712 transit and 752 fixed/transciently fixed post teams.

  “Children at homes, markets, churches, mosques, major car parks and social event venues would be specifically targeted. The house-to-house and transit components of these teams will administer only OPV to children aged 0-59 months. These teams will also encourage the eligible children in the houses to visit the immunisation posts for the other antigens, which will be offered to such children based on their immunisation status.”

  Adeshine said further that the responsibility of children immunisation is not that of the parents and caregivers alone, but rest on everyone to ensure that our children are fully covered.

  She urged all leaders in the community, politicians, councillors, traditional leaders and religious leaders to take full responsibility in ensuring that every child in their community receives polio antigen during this campaign and other scheduled immunisations.

  The next round of the campaign exercise will hold in April 2014.


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