It could be any other vaccination drive but the programme has extra importance in Nigeria, where there has not been a case of the virus since July 24 last year. As the one-year anniversary approaches without a case, health officials are keen to keep it that way. If successful, Nigeria will be taken off the list of polio-endemic countries. Fauziyya Ahmed scribbles a code with chalk on the door of a house that she and her team have just visited to indicate the children are now immunised. “So far we have not encountered any resistance from parents in all the homes we have visited,” she told AFP. “People now accept the polio vaccine as safe for their children, unlike in the past, when parents were hostile to vaccinators and would call them names.” – Aggressive battle – They weren’t only called names. In February 2013, eight unknown gunmen opened fire on two polio clinics in Kano, killing nine women vaccinators. Between 2003 and 2004, Kano state suspended polio immunisation for 13 months, after some Muslim clerics and doctors claimed the vaccine was a US-led Western plot to depopulate Africa. Similar claims have been made in the world’s two other polio-endemic countries, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Read more on vanguard news.
Monday, 8 June 2015
Nigeria in aggressive battle to push polio out...
Health workers move from door to door in the rural Sumaila district of Kano state, northern Nigeria, administering oral polio vaccines to children under five.
It could be any other vaccination drive but the programme has extra importance in Nigeria, where there has not been a case of the virus since July 24 last year. As the one-year anniversary approaches without a case, health officials are keen to keep it that way. If successful, Nigeria will be taken off the list of polio-endemic countries. Fauziyya Ahmed scribbles a code with chalk on the door of a house that she and her team have just visited to indicate the children are now immunised. “So far we have not encountered any resistance from parents in all the homes we have visited,” she told AFP. “People now accept the polio vaccine as safe for their children, unlike in the past, when parents were hostile to vaccinators and would call them names.” – Aggressive battle – They weren’t only called names. In February 2013, eight unknown gunmen opened fire on two polio clinics in Kano, killing nine women vaccinators. Between 2003 and 2004, Kano state suspended polio immunisation for 13 months, after some Muslim clerics and doctors claimed the vaccine was a US-led Western plot to depopulate Africa. Similar claims have been made in the world’s two other polio-endemic countries, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Read more on vanguard news.
It could be any other vaccination drive but the programme has extra importance in Nigeria, where there has not been a case of the virus since July 24 last year. As the one-year anniversary approaches without a case, health officials are keen to keep it that way. If successful, Nigeria will be taken off the list of polio-endemic countries. Fauziyya Ahmed scribbles a code with chalk on the door of a house that she and her team have just visited to indicate the children are now immunised. “So far we have not encountered any resistance from parents in all the homes we have visited,” she told AFP. “People now accept the polio vaccine as safe for their children, unlike in the past, when parents were hostile to vaccinators and would call them names.” – Aggressive battle – They weren’t only called names. In February 2013, eight unknown gunmen opened fire on two polio clinics in Kano, killing nine women vaccinators. Between 2003 and 2004, Kano state suspended polio immunisation for 13 months, after some Muslim clerics and doctors claimed the vaccine was a US-led Western plot to depopulate Africa. Similar claims have been made in the world’s two other polio-endemic countries, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Read more on vanguard news.
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