2 September 2002
Lagos — The Bauchi state government in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO), has immunized 800,000 children against polio in 15 local government areas at the cost of about N30 million.
But in neighbouring Gombe state, the virus has re-emerged in four of the 21 local government areas, just as there are reported cases of re-emergence in some states this transmission season between August and November.
Iliyasu told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Bauchi that WHO provided the vaccines at N30 per dose.
He said about 1.3 million children, under five years were projected to be vaccinated adding, "we had to embark on an emergency exercise in the 15 local governments to contain the spread of the disease and efforts would be intensified to cover the entire state".
He said the exercise would be repeated in October, stressing that the technical report on the recent polio vaccination was being awaited from the WHO.
Commending the efforts of the organisation for assisting the state, Iliyasu remarked that, "the epidemic emanated from neighbouring states and we would not relent in our efforts to control the disease".
In Gombe, affected local governments include Gombe, Akko, Dukku and Kwami.
The permanent secretary in the state ministry of health, Mr. Mato Adamu Yakubu, confirmed the re-emergence of five polio cases in the affected council areas after two years.
A breakdown of the reported cases, according to him, shows that two cases were identified in Kwami local government area, while one case each occurred in Gombe, Akko and Dukku councils. He said that about 623,708 children were immunized against polio in the first round of the immunization exercise across the state, while 645,878 children received anti polio doses during the second phase of the exercise in the state this year.
He noted that although the Federal Government had provided the state with enough vaccines through the National Programme on Immunization (NPI), the state government spent N3.5 million since 1997 on the procurement of vaccines. "This excludes vaccines received from donor organisations," Yakubu added.
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