Plateau: UNICEF launches campaign to maintain Polio at zero level

From Tongnaan Bawa, Jos

United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has in conjunction with Plateau state flag off its campaign to maintain polio virus at zero level by engaging a joint team of stakeholders and health workers to vaccinate 102, 871 against targeted 99,359 children.

Our correspondent while covering the immunisation process in Jos South Local Government Area of Plateau State, observed that health workers and stakeholders were at their duty posts to ensure children and parents who do not want to access the vaccination are persuaded to adhere to it.

Battles of non- compliance

A team 010 Community Leader and Town crier for polio vaccination campaign, Uzaifa Mohammed, of Bukuru Central, says two major challenges he has faced in his work at the polio exercise is non- compliance by parents especially mothers.

“We have more challenges of non-compliance from mothers, who don’t want their children to be immunised. In one of the houses, the mother refused claiming it is their father that gave the instruction against it . We however went to the father and he denied the allegations asking us to plead with her. We asked her questions, and said if she was not vaccinated, would she have appeared normal without any physical challenges, and finally she agreed to allow her children to get the Polio dose vaccination”.

Mohammed said so far, during the two days of routine immunisation work he has carried out in his LGA, there is alot of compliance by parents, and he has only met two parents on non-compliance issues. “But we have successfully gone back to visit them and resolve the problem. If the women refuse, sometimes we use their grandparents to urge the mothers to allow the child to be vaccinated”.

He advised mothers to accept Polio vaccination for their children and dispel myths that claim that doing it will make their children impotent because it is not true. “We want mothers to always cooperate with us, it’s for the benefit of the child not us, if a child grows up to discover he or she is physically challenged due to the negligence of the mother or the father, it will be very regretful for the parent. That is why we do the Polio immunisation in their presence, we also had sensitisation and awareness about the vaccinations in our mosques”, Mohammed said appreciating UNICEF and other donors for giving support to achieve the process. “If not for their intervention, many people cannot afford the costs if they were asked to pay for the vaccination as many citizens of the country are battling with food security and economic challenges. The Immunisation has also helped to lessen fatality of illnesses like measules and other childhood diseases” he said.

The Need For Advocacy

During a recent advocacy visit to the Gbong Gwom Jos, Jacob Gyang Buba Buba, UNICEF’s Bauchi Field Officer, Ms Nuzhat Rafique disclosed that 68,000 children in Plateau were expected to be immunised, with a comprehensive plan through targeted interventions in high-risk areas, including Jos North, Jos South, Shendam, and Wase, as well as five additional zero-dose districts, and the strategy would involve immediate catch-up activities before the April 26 to 30 campaigns, followed by a second round in December; this is to ensure no child is left behind.

In a press briefing, on 28th April 2025, to mark the 2025 World Malaria Day, African Vaccination Week and National Immunisation Plus Days, the Plateau Commissioner for Health, Dr Nicolas Baamlung, said notable progress had been made in the fight against vaccine-derived Polio. “Between 2023 and 2024, the state recorded a significant decline as well as interrupting the circulating variant pilioviris type 2 (cVDPV2) cases for 9 months”.

“The routine Immunisation coverage has increased from 41.2 percent to 68 percent, yet below the national target of 90 percent. This shows that eradication is within reach, if we maintain momentum, especially in high risk areas of Plateau State” the commissioner said assuring the the Plateau state government remains steadfast and in its support to local governments and communities working together to ensure that immunisation for all is not just a goal but a reality”.

“The Plateau State Ministry of Health, (SMOH) and Primary Health Care (PSPHCB) are working closely with partners to identify and reach Zero-dose children,integrate immunisation into the primary health care and build stronger more resilient health systems” he further assured.

Stakeholders, Health workers airs on compliance, address non-compliance

Moses Atang, a Health worker at the LGA immunisation Office for Jos South, said when there are programs of this nature, you cannot completely runaway from issues with parents and care givers.

“Social mobilisation and engagements has been carried out at various levels, with community and religious leaders including Community Based Organisations (CBO’s) to ensure they understand the concept of immunisation especially the Polio campaign. Yet we have had little challenges from people
in some communities, where parents feel there is no need to do the immunisation. And at all times, we have engaged community leaders to resolve such issues, but they are very minute”.

On the Immunisation turn out, Atang said it is very impressive and encouraging in Jos South LGA, which he described as a ‘cosmopolitan city’. “We don’t have issues with people and the turn out is usually very good. We work with Jamatu Nasril Islam (JNI), Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), community leaders and security agencies so that when we have issues with parents that has to do with rejection, or non compliance, we go together as a team with the stakeholders to find out what the reason is.

He said the target is chosen from birth to 5 years and the project is a National program towards eradicating Polio virus under the National Immunisation Plus (NIPDC). At the moment, the country is facing Circulating Vaccine Derived Polio virus (CVDPV) and we want to ensure we break that strain in the community. As at today, the total immunised for the LGA is 109,000 so far immunised within 2 days”.

Kubak Shitmua Silas, Ward Focal Person, Bukuru Ward, Jos South LGA says the vaccination being given is Novel Oral Polio Vaccine (NOPV) to children from 0-59 months. “We give 2 drops orally in their mouth, and we mark their little left finger so that as a sign the child has been vaccinated” she said.

She also said positive results is being expected from the vaccination teams, as they go house to house to give the children report back to her. “But we do have challenges like non-compliance, people refusing to be vaccinated, we go there with our stakeholders, committee leaders, Ward Health Development Committees (WHDC’s), Village Head Development Committees (VHDC’s),of the area where the noncompliance has taken place. They help us resolve the noncompliance and other challenges that we have. We don’t give the Stakeholders any incentives to resolve the challenges because they see the program as part of their own, we are just their workers so they are always willing to come out and support it.

There are cases of Non compliance in the 2 days outing we have conducted so far, yesterday, we had one case in an islamic school, the JNI helped us to resolve it. Some of the non compliance incidences happened at households and we are still following up to resolve the cases. So during mop up especially in the evening, we visit such households to resolve it. After field work, we revisit households where the children were not at home or there was non compliance, so that every eligible child is immunised”.

On her team, she disclosed: “For Bukuru Ward, I have 18 teams, with each team consisting of 3 people, and 3 special teams, so the total number of staff for Bukuru Ward is 66. The workers are ward focal person, 18 team supervisors, 18 vaccinators, 18 community leaders, special team, and fixed posts.

One of the mothers, Lucy Luka, 35 years from Dorowa, Jos South LGA who accessed the Polio vaccine, at the Jos South PHC said she is happy to give her child this life-saving vaccination. She said it’s her first child. As she expressed excitement that her 15-weeks old son is being vaccinated against the virus that can curse paralysis, Lucy said she is aware of the consequences and health implications of not vaccinating her baby boy against polio. “He will have abnormalities, like disabilities” she added that she will pass the information and encourage other mothers to go for the vaccination, which is given free, without any charges.

Proper Storage and maintenance of Vaccines

Mercy Aku, the Jos South LGA Cold Chain Officer (CCO) and vaccines Manager on her part said as the custodian of vaccines in Jos South LGA, she stores all the vaccines to be used for polio exercise in the cold room.

“Here in the cold room, we store all the vaccines. We have freezers for manufacturing ice-packs, and Solar Direct Drive so that even if there is no electricity, it uses the sun to store our vaccines, all of the vaccines are stored in plus two to plus 80 degrees centigrade, that is how we get the right potency of our vaccines. We also manufacture icepacks for our solar points, we have solar points in all the 20 wards in the LGA. The icepacks helps to maintain the potency of the vaccines, with vaccine carriers they go out with and this makes the vaccine can last for up to 24 hours.

“The vaccination is for 4 days, and then we have additional 2 days for mop up, that’s going back to check who has not received it. Sometimes where we have non-compliance, we go back, mop and re-visit households. We re-visit households of those children who were not found at home so we have to go back to check if they are back so that we immunise them. So we use those extra two days to do that. Also we go back to visit households with non-compliance, whose parents refused to bring out their children for vaccination. We go and visit them to give us their wards. We have a social mobilisation officer and Social Mobilisation Committee (SMC), and LGA task force, in the LGA so that when we go back and they refuse, at the end of the day, we either use dialogue, or the task force”, she said adding that In a while there has been no report of wild Polio virus in Plateau, and the only case relisted is the Circulative Derived Variant.

Christopher Julius Muduutdai, Ward Focal for Gyel A and Routine Immunisation (RI) Focal for children in Bukuru express, Jos South while speaking to The Nigeria Standard at the Bukuru express PHC as at 7:50 am, when he had already distributed the vaccines to the vaccinators to go out to the field, said “To eradicate polio from Plateau, our job is to identify children who have not been given Immunisation, so that we don’t leave them out. I have 11 teams in Gyel A ward, with one special team, that’s making 12, I have given them all the vaccines, tally sheets, chalk for house to house, marker to mark the left thumb of the children who have been vaccinated, pictorials for them to identify cases of children from 0-15 years who have not been getting Polio, or received Polio vaccine, you see them having paralysis of the limbs, if we get these cases, we inform and refer it to the World Health Organisation (WHO) who come and carry out the samples. Today, the vaccinators will go out to their various settlements, we have 11 settlements for the house to house teams, then transit to the market and motor parks to identify children who come from different states, that have not been immunised, so our special teams immunise them so that they don’t infect our children with Polio infection”

Muduutdai who says he has been working on the immunisation project for over 10 years commended sponsors of the vaccination, saying the intervention of the donors, who also give stipends to field workers, and efforts of health workers, other stakeholders has helped to make the process of eradicating polio successful and “That’s why Plateau has not recorded any case of polio like other states”, he said.

Debriefing
At the end of day routine immunisation work, all health workers, Stakeholders meet to discuss activities of the day, challenges, success story and finding lasting solutions to solving any or issues encountered while on the field by health workers. Stakeholders such as traditional/ community leaders, Religious, security, members of Rotary International who are major sponsors of the polio vaccines, vaccinators, markers deliberate on sustainability of achievements too.

Our correspondent reports that un-used vaccines are returned including used bottles for records keeping as well as ice bags and other items earlier released for field work to all those concerned.