From Maurice Okafor
The Wife of Enugu State Governor, Mrs Monica Ugwuanyi, has urged mothers to ensure their children completes all routine immunisations so as to prevent child-killer diseases.
Mrs Ugwuanyi gave the charge yesterday while flagging-off the National Immunisation Plus Days (NIPDs) in Ibagwa Aka Primary Healthcare Centre (PHC) in Igboeze South council area near Nsukka in Enugu State.
She called on mothers to present infants immunisation cards for immunisation teams to mark them regularly and ensure that their child or ward do not miss any routine immunisation meant to check the menace of child-killer diseases.
The governor’s wife assured that the state government was committed to 100 per cent immunisation coverage especially on polio.
Ugwuanyi also called on mothers to improve their personal and home hygiene levels to be able to prevent Lassa fever and other communicable diseases.
“You must ensure that your homes are kept clean always; while all your cooked food and food stuffs are properly covered against rodents.
“Then, you must observe the universal hand washing habits especially when you come back to your home or want to feed your baby.
“All plates used for meals must be washed or re-washed before using them to dish your meal and that of your baby.
“The current dreaded diseases of Lass fever and corona virus have close symptoms and prevention method; which dwells on personal and environmental hygiene,’’ she added.
Earlier, in an address, the state Commissioner for Health, Prof. Anthony Ugochukwu, said that it had been 11 years now the state had not recorded any polio case due to the commitment of the state government.
“We are grateful to Gov. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi for his strides to
reposition healthcare and routine immunization for the benefit of the people especially rural dwellers,’’ Ugochukwu, who was represented by Dr George Ugwu, Executive Secretary of Enugu State Primary Healthcare
Centre Development Agency (ENS-PHCDA), said.
Speaking, Dr George Ugwu, Executive Secretary of ENS-PHCDA, said that the NIPDs polio immunisation was targeting no fewer than 1,050,000 children between the ages of 0 and 5 years.
Ugwu said that the four days exercise, which started on Feb. 15, would end on Feb. 18.
He said that the exercise had a total of 2,834 trained immunization teams covering the entire states and with special teams trained to cover hard to reach areas.
`We want to ensure that we achieve more than 100 per cent coverage in this current statewide polio immunisation.
`All hands are on deck. We are having the full commitment and cooperation of all our international and local partners to ensure we have a resounding success just as we did in recent statewide immunisation campaigns,’’ he said
