Polio: 469 rejection cases recorded in Sokoto

No fewer than 469 cases of rejection of polio vaccines have been recorded in the 11 wards of Illela Local Government Area of Sokoto State, an official said on Sunday.
The Director of Health in the area, Hajiya Amina Jibril, disclosed this at Illela to newsmen.
The journalists were monitoring the ongoing first round of the 2014 Four-Day Polio Immunisation Campaign, which began on Saturday.
Jibril said 242 out of the cases had been resolved by the officials conducting the exercise.
“Efforts are also ongoing to resolve the remaining cases, with a view to ensuring that all the eligible children of zero to five years of age are fully immunised,” she said.
The director said 10,649 children had already been immunised as at January 25, out of the 93,720 children who were targeted for the exercise.
Jibril commended the local government for providing N700,000 worth of additional drugs and gifts such as candies for the children.
“The gesture is encouraging the parents to allow their children to be immunised against the dreaded disease,” Jibril said.
On his part, the Director of Health in Gada Local Government Area, Alhaji Hassan Yabo, said the local government had also replicated what Illela Local Government Area did.
“We provided N700,000 worth of additional drugs and children’s gifts to serve as incentives to the parents,” Yabo said.
Yabo said 106,160 children of zero to five years of age had been targeted in the area for the exercise.
He said: “We were able to fully immunise 36,012 children on the first day of the exercise on January 25.
“So far, we have not recorded any cases of non-compliance or rejection of the polio vaccines by parents,” he said.