Leadership (Abuja)
19 May 2008
An polio disease has been recorded in Bauchi State with Katagum local government having the highest number of victims.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the outbreak in the village of Lafiya near Ragwam in Katagum local government has resulted in the death of one child.
The coordinator of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in the North-East Zone, Dr Nuhu Barau, led a team of journalists to Lafiya yesterday where they saw the 16 surviving victims.
Barau said a team of immunisation workers were in the area to dispense the necessary medicine to both the victims and other children who were not immunised due to resistance from their families.
"We have problems of resistance from some families and sometimes the workers themselves were not giving us a true picture of the situation on the ground.
"The outbreak shows that the immunity of the children in this area is very low, and this is because they were not immunised or they were not given enough doses of the medicine," he said.
He called on the people of the area to henceforth allow their children to be immunised since the outbreak had confirmed that the disease existed.
Also speaking, the village head of the area, Alhaji Abdullahi Garba, said it was unfortunate and disheartening that the children were affected because he had always welcomed the immunisation workers.
He said that whenever they arrived at the village, he would order his children to be immunised first so that others would see that the exercise was important.
"I always ask the workers to start with my family because that way, my subjects will know that the exercise was safe and important" he added.
Other areas of the state affected by this outbreak were Katagum with eight cases, Darazo, three cases, while Zaki, Ningi and Bauchi towns had one case each.
Earlier, the team paid a courtesy call to the Emir of Katagum, Alhaji Kabir Umar ,who called for more campaign on the danger of the disease and the need for all parents to allow their children to be immunised.
"We will do our best and you too should do your best in fighting this disease," he said.
He called on the media to arrange for more programmes where people and the authorities could mount a more serious campaign against the disease.
NAN recalled that the federal government had wanted the on going round of immunisation exercise in the country to be the last so that by end of May it would announce the total eradication of polio in Nigeria.
However, with this outbreak and others reported in states like Borno, Jigawa and Kano, the total eradication of polio in May would not be feasible. (NAN)
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