Medical Doctors Reject Polio Vaccine for Children As Kano Sacks 12 Ad-Hoc Workers Over Compromise

By Kola Omoniyi

A fresh case of Circulating Polio Virus (CPV) has been discovered inside sewage situated at Darmanawa Ward in Tarauni Local Government Area of Kano State within the metropolis, three years after the last Wide Polio Virus (WPV) was recorded in the State.

According to medical experts, the Circulating Polio Virus is mostly linked with poor environmental sanitation, though it cannot cripple a child its continued existence poses a threat of crippling Wide Polio Virus (WPV).

The Primary Health Care Coordinator of Tarauni Local Government Area, Comrade Nura Haruna explained that the virus was suspected to have emanated from Zaria Local Government in Kaduna State where two cases of CPV were earlier discovered this year.

“Before this discovery in Tarauni LGA, there were two cases recorded in Zaria, so we are suspecting that it is either the affected children travel down to Kano to spread the disease or the CPV came through the sewage due to poor environmental sanitation in the area because we have conducted some scientific test and discovered the CPV inside a sewage in the LGA” Haruna said.

Comrade Haruna further noted that following the discovery, all under five children in the area are at risk of contracting the CPV, hence the State Ministry of Health and some other stakeholders quickly organised a mop up immunization exercise at the LGA to prevent the spread of the virus.

Medical Doctors Reject Polio Vaccine for Children

The Primary Health Care Coordinator also lamented the rampant cases of noncompliance to polio and routine immunization in the area especially at Darmanawa, Hotoro and Daurawa wards, saying that the elite in the area hardly releases their legible children for immunization in spite of its importance.

“There are so many elites in Darmanawa, Hotoro, and Daurawa wards out of ten wards at the LGA, surprisingly some of them are medical Doctors, Police and Immigration officers, but they are preventing our workers from accessing their households. Sometimes our workers spend an hour in a particular house without seeing anyone attending to them; we need the intervention of relevant authorities to compel them to take the polio immunization very seriously”

“Whether you are elite or not, we need your household to be vaccinated because if we vaccinate nine out of 10 houses, the remaining one will still put the entire community at polio risk” Haruna explained further.

He said though there are some husbands who still restrain their wives from presenting their children for immunization, some of the wives who understand the importance of the Polio Immunization used to release their children while the husbands were not around without applying finger mark on the children to avoid husband’s suspicion.

 12 Ad-Hoc Workers Sacked For Compromise

He also stated that in the course of routine monitoring of the engaged ad-hoc staff for the exercise, it was discovered that some of them were compromising the immunization process by finger marking some legible children without administering the polio vaccine in their mouths based on the mutual agreement they had with some parents, who had reservation against the exercise.

According to him, considering the utmost priority being accorded to the exercise by the State Government, it did not hesitate to sack the affected 12 workers.

“We have been sacking many ad-hoc workers found wanting of compromising the immunization process and we will not stop doing that until we sanitise the process and eventual certification of Nigeria polio free. In fact, we just sacked four teams comprising of three members each among the ad-hoc staff when we investigated and found them wanting”

He however urged parents to prioritize personal hygiene and environmental sanitation as well as ensuring constant release of their legible children for immunization as at when due so as to prevent any attempt by the Wide Polio Virus to resurface in the State.