The Oyo State government has revealed that its efforts towards the eradication of polio in the state has yielded positive results and is still yielding fruits, adding that the state has not recorded any polio outbreak for the past seven years.
The State Commissioner for Health, Dr Azeez Adeduntan, made this disclosure at the weekend during the flag off of the first round of the 2017 National Immunization Plus Days (NIPDs) held at the secretariat of Oyo West local Government, Ojongbodu Oyo town.
Dr. Adeduntan stated that the state government would scale up the collaboration between the state and local governments to ensure that immunisation services reach every child in the state, stressing that the government is set to make immunisation services the right of every child and not a privilege.
The commissioner explained that the NIPDs campaign was not only on eradication of polio but on all vaccine preventable diseases, noting that children are most susceptible to infections during the early childhood years.
According to him, the National Immunisation Plus Days is a supplemental immunisation campaign geared to ensure herd immunity among the under five years children against poliomyelitis and towards the eradication of the disease in Nigeria.
Dr Adeduntan urged mothers to make their children from ages 0-5 years available for the first round of immunisation between March 25 and 28, 2017, explaining that it has been scientifically proven that immunization does not kill or affect children negatively against the backdrop of some cultural belief.
He called on all mothers to make sure they complete all stipulated immunization from birth for their children so that the efforts of the State government will not be fruitless.
“The intervention and target age group includes women of child bearing ages against tetanus toxoid and health promotion, children of 0-59 months for oral polio and all missed routine antigens and children of 0-11 months for due and missed routine antigens,” Dr Adeduntan stressed.