Katsina, Kano, Kaduna launch polio drives targeting over 7 million children
- Katsina plans to vaccinate 2.69 million children in 22 local government areas from November 7.
- Kano targets 3.02 million children in 21 high-risk areas over four days, with 3.5 million doses on hand.
- Kaduna began its own drive on Thursday, aiming for up to 1.5 million children in 11 areas.
Three northern states are rolling out polio vaccination campaigns this week, aiming to reach millions of children under five as health officials warn that mutant poliovirus is still circulating in the region.
Katsina will start on Saturday, November 7, targeting 2,688,730 children aged 0 to 59 months, according to Dr Mukhtar Mahmud, health educator at the Katsina State Primary Health Care Agency. He spoke at a mobilisation meeting with journalists, influencers, NYSC members and U-Reporters at the state polio emergency operations centre in Katsina.
The exercise will cover 28 of the state's 34 local government areas, 299 wards and more than 17,000 settlements. Bindawa, Dutsi, Kankia, Kusada, Safana and Sandamu will not take part this round.
Teams will use house-to-house visits, fixed and temporary posts, transit teams and directly observed vaccination. Children will receive the novel oral polio vaccine type 2, the bivalent oral polio vaccine and the fractional inactivated polio vaccine. The campaign runs two days of directly observed vaccination, four days of house-to-house visits and two days of mop-up for children who were missed.
Katsina is also folding in other services through the Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Week and the SARMAAN II project, which target children and pregnant women.
Kano and Kaduna also move
Kano aims to reach 3,024,026 children in 30 high-risk local government areas between November 7 and 10, the state's social mobilisation officer, Alhaji Rabiu Ibrahim, said at a stakeholder briefing. This third round will focus on 30 of the state's 44 LGAs rather than all of them, based on risk analysis.
Ibrahim said Kano has received 3,568,300 doses of oral polio vaccine from the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, along with tally sheets, droppers and registers. Teams will work house to house, at fixed posts in health facilities, and through special teams sent to schools and public places.
He urged parents to make sure a child is vaccinated before the finger is marked with ink, so that no child is marked without receiving the drops.
In Kaduna, the campaign began on Thursday, November 5, with a target of between 1.3 million and 1.5 million children under five across nine local government areas and 101 wards. Isah Yushau of the Kaduna State Primary Health Care Board named the areas as Chikun, Igabi, Giwa, Kudan, Makarfi, Ikara, Soba, Sabon Gari and Zaria.
Yushau said Kaduna isolated two mutant poliovirus samples earlier this year in Soba and Igabi, after similar detections in some areas late last year, and that neighbouring states are seeing different variants. Teams will visit homes, schools, churches, mosques, playgrounds and streets.
All three states asked parents and caregivers to cooperate with vaccinators and to keep up routine immunisation, which also covers tuberculosis, measles, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough and pneumonia.
What happens next
Katsina and Kano begin their rounds on Saturday, November 7. Katsina's runs through house-to-house and mop-up phases, while Kano's is scheduled to end on November 10. Kaduna's campaign is expected to last about a week.
