Sultan of Sokoto reiterates commitment to routine immunization
The Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar, has reiterated the commitment of traditional institutions to work with government to ensure that communities have access to routine immunization across the zone.
The Sultan made this known in his remarks at an event organised by the National Primary health care development Agency (NPHCDA), in collaboration with the Sultan Foundation for peace and development with Northern Traditional leaders committee (NTLC) on Public Health Care (PHC) strategic meeting on Wednesday in Kaduna.
He said the meeting discussed with traditional leaders on ways to reach totally inaccessible and displaced Communities of Kaduna, Niger and Katsina States for routine immunisation.
The Royal father said they will ensure that every child gets immunised while also discussing the challenges that make some of them inaccessible.
According to him, after several engagements on issues related to routine immunisation, some of the challenges faced were the lack of implementation, while encouraging communities to always take their children for routine immunisation.
He called for more awareness on the importance of immunisation.
On his part, the chairman, Northern traditional leaders’ committee on primary health care delivery, Emir of Argungu Alhaji Sama’ila Mera, said the need to convene the meeting arose from the Situation Report received by the First Quarter NTLC Review Meeting from Zamfara.
He said in a report to the meeting, the Zamfara State NTLC representative stated that the devastating security situation in the state has made access to many communities and children difficult or impossible, creating a risk of an outbreak of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases, especially the mutated vaccine-derived polio virus.
According to him, the meeting resolved to contact all the Emirates and Chiefdoms in the six states with a view to collecting the list of all communities displaced and where they relocated to, including all communities under the control of bandits who are not enjoying government presence or protection.
“We need to know the population of people affected and if possible, the number of children under the age of five in the communities,” he added.
The meeting also resolved, on receipt of feedback information, to call for a meeting with the leaders of line-listed communities to listen and work with them to plan strategically how best to reach every child in such communities with a vaccine and medical support for pregnant and lactating mothers.
He further explained that the engagement will take situation reports and mitigation suggestions from 48 Districts of 34 LGAs from Kaduna, Niger, and Katsina States.
The meeting called on each District Head to speak about the situation in their areas of administration and suggest how best the government and Development Partners can work to ensure that every child and mother are reached with a vaccine and desired medical support no matter the security situation.
Speaking also at the event, Dr Hadiza Balarabe, who represented Gov. Uba Sani at the strategic meeting, said the meeting is apt considering the persistence issue of non-vaccination of children.
She said the North West zone has been lagging behind in the immunisation vaccine for vaccine preventable diseases, adding that it has become important to improve the rate and by implication the survival rate and well-being of children.
According to her, Kaduna state is committed to making progress in health and has procured equipment for the 255 primary healthcare centres across the state.
