From Maduabuchi Nmeribeh, Kano
The uncommon door-to-door campaign carried out by religious and traditional leaders in Dambatta Local Government Area of Kano state has resulted to massive immunization of over 83, 268 under-five children in the just concluded polio immunization exercise in the area.
The AUTHORITY reports that notable traditional and religious leaders in the area took it upon themselves to educate their people on the need to make their children available for immunisation.
The Local Immunization Officer (LIO) in charge of Dambatta, Alhaji Najib Yusuf, confirmed to The AUTHORITY that religious and traditional leaders played vital roles in mobilising parents to come forward with their children from immunization.
He said, “efforts of traditional rulers coupled with cooperation of religious leaders in educating parents on the health hazard of non-compliance to polio vaccine immunisation ,paved way for immunisation of over 83,268 Children in Dambatta Local Government Area.”
He added that, “following this move ,many parents did not hesitate to bring out their Children for immunisation exercise. This is why we are on top. We have surpassed the targeted 81,536 children earlier projected
for immunization.”
Najib maintained that traditional and religion leaders in the areas ,educated parents on the need to ensure their children were immunised against the six killer disease .
According bto him, the turnout was s on impressive that parents freely bring their children for immunization, “we have situations where immunization officers were called upon to come back and immunize children who were earlier not at home.
” We are happy that our people have accepted the message. They have understood the need for immunization; and I must tell you that our traditional and religious leaders took it upon themselves to make this happen.”
Alhaji Yusuf ,further disclosed that, “as usual, ,sweet, sachet milk as well as other items ,were given to children as a way of motivation strategy , a situation that made large number of children to come out and participate in the polio immunisation programme.
” Our target as per the number of children to be immunised during the exercise was 81,536; but with enough vaccines provided by the Council ,we were able to exceed the target and recorded 83,268.”
