The federal government on Wednesday, August 17, said about N9.8 billion of the annual budgetary allocation for immunisation would be released this week to ensure that Polio is effectively tackled.
The Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, at a briefing in Abuja on government’s efforts to address the challenges associated with the outbreak of the two new cases in Borno State, refuted reports that the Federal Ministry of Finance withheld the release of the 2016 budget for immunisation.
He told newsmen that contrary to reports, government, through the ministry of finance, had earlier released about N6.5 billion for polio aimed at arresting the ugly incidents of new cases of polio as recorded last week.
“By Monday, the N9.8 billion budgeted for immunisation will be released to fight vaccine preventable diseases, particularly, Polio virus,” the Minister said.
Last week, Nigeria reported two WPV1 cases in Gwoza and Jere Local Government Areas of Borno State after two years without a single case.
Adewole explained that “following the confirmation of the outbreak of WPV in Borno State, to ensure the containment of all the cases and prevent further spread of WPV to other states, I have approved the revision of the robust WPV outbreak response plan developed by the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency and its partners.
“The response plan includes five (rounds of polio campaigns, two of which are focused on 18 northern states and two to be conducted nationwide, one to be conducted in five states. These campaigns will be synchronised with the affected regions and provinces in Chad, Niger, Cameroun and Central African Republic.”
According to Adewole, “For the sub-national campaigns, 31,540,054 children are targeted to be vaccinated each round with oral polio vaccines across states in the North-east, North-west and North-central zones of the country. For the nationwide response, 56,363,618 children will be vaccinated between October and November 2016.
“The revised plan was informed by factors such as historical data on WPV affected areas, pattern of transmission over the last five years, population displacements due to insecurity in the North-east, likelihood of spread of the virus to other neighbouring countries and population immunity.”
He told newsmen that the justification for the expansion of the initial schedule includes the fact that, given previous history of exportation to other countries and the suboptimal routine immunisation coverage in several countries in the African region, the response requires that adequate protection be provided to vulnerable children at the risk of infection.
