Laide Akinboade
2 September 2008
The search for an end to the spread of polio virus has been on for years. While an appreciable impact has been made in some of the 36 states of the Federation, there still appears a scary situation in some of the states, prompting relentless campaigns by the various stakeholders.
Statistics have shown that Nigeria, with a population of 140 million people is still contending with cases of polio outbreak in states like Osun, Sokoto and Zamfara. In fact, it has been stated that Nigeria is the second nation with the highest number of polio virus attacks, just coming after Pakistan. In 2008 so far, a total of, 575 cases of polio attacks have been reported in the country.
According to reports by the World Health Organization (WHO), in July 2008 alone, 23 new cases of paralysis were reported in Sokoto and Osun states.
This is a matter for great concern to the world body, which prevailed on the Federal Government to launch a nationwide immunization against polio for children under five years of age. President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua has since launched the immunization programmme against the polio virus.
Polio is a disease that is caused by virus and when a child is infected with this virus it can cause paralysis of the limbs and sometime leads to death. Polio mostly affects children under five years of age though there have been few cases of adults having the infection.
The children are mostly infected through contaminated drinking water. It is also stated that polio has succeeded in killing about 10% of its victims. A carrier of the virus can pass it on to an uninfected person.
Presently, just like HIV/AIDS, a cure for polio has not been discovered, so the only way out is to prevent children from being infected and this is done through Immunization with oral polio vaccine (OPV). Statistics have shown that the polio vaccine severally decrease a child's risk of emergent polio virus.
The Federal Government picked 23-28 of August, 2008 to immunize all the children in some selected states where the disease have been reported. Though some of these children had been immunized in the past some of them were said to have been under immunized leading to reports of paralysis of the limbs in some instances.
A report by WHO further aints the picture in these words: "Children continue to be crippled by poliovirus in Nigeria because too many children are under- immunized. Under-immunized children are the disease's human host. Un-immunized children facilitate its transmission within and between communities.
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