Polio Survivors Urge Parents To Vaccinate Their Children

Following the refusal of parents in some communities in Kano state to allow their children receive the polio vaccine, Immunisation officers have engaged the services of Polio survivors.

The survivors’ educated and enlightened parents on the need to administer the vaccine so as to avert deformities in the future.

Local Immunisation Officer (LIO) Kiru local government council, Alhaji Kabir Dan’Isa explained that receiving the vaccine has nothing to do with politics as perceived by some.

“Receiving the polio vaccine has nothing to do with whether one belongs to party “A” or party “B”,” Dan’Isa said.

“The issue of polio immunisation has nothing to do with whether a person belongs to People Democratic Party (PDP) or All Progressive Congress (APC),” Dan’Isa emphasised.

As a result of their enlightenment, parents freely brought their children for immunisation against the disease.

Dan’Isa told Journalists that following a series of enlightenment programmes, the council was able to immunise 110,425 children in the exercise.

When asked to give reasons for non-compliance, the LIO said, “As you know people were difficult, however, when I spoke to them, they didn’t understand the reasons why they should allow their children to be immunized against the polio disease.

“We explained that this is something important for the health and future of their children with the help of traditional institutions and government officers.

“Since they were seeing those people that were affected by polio diseases, they resolved to get their children vaccinated.”

On the challenges experience during the exercise, he said, “The main challenge confronting the exercise was the issue of rain, because most supervisors were unable to gain access to some of their areas as they would have had to cross several rivers.

“Bawa and Dansosa were the few wards affected by this problem of overflowing of water during raining season.”