By Charly Agwam

As the campaign for immunization against polio gains momentum in Bauchi, traditional rulers are taking the front seat to sensitize households in their domain against refusal of the vaccine for under five children.

Non-compliance to immunization has been a challenge in Toro local government area. Infact, Toro was one of the 13 local government areas in Bauchi State where ‘No dose’ was recorded.

Speaking with Vanguard, the Ward Head of Toro, Inuwa Mohammed Toro detailed his involvement in convincing his non-complaint subject to accept the polio vaccine for their children.

Inuwa who blamed baseless myths for non-compliance, appealed to his subjects to key into the immunization against polio programme and help kick polio out of his community.

“Honestly, I am not happy with people who are rejecting the vaccine. However, we have made progress in the area of non-compliance. Those days, it was difficult convincing people to accept polio vaccine but today there are only few people who are not compliant. You know some baseless myths have been the reason why people are rejecting vaccine, but we are making progress.

“I have counseled people myself against believing those unfounded stories. Of all the lies they tell about the vaccine, I can’t find one evidence. Surely, we will continue to go from house to house in order to sensitize our people to stop rejecting the vaccine,” he said.

A mother of four, Jamila Mohammed who praised WHO and UNICEF efforts wondered why people are spreading conspiracy theories against receiving the vaccine.

“I have four children and they are vaccinated. I was also vaccinated against polio when I was a child. Just to let you know that people are telling lies against accepting polio vaccine: they say polio vaccine is birth control, but look at me, I have four children. I can even have as many as twenty if I want.

“And, there are many women and men like me who were vaccinated. No matter what their excuse is, the benefits far outweigh the challenges, if any. I urge everyone to vaccinate their children and protect our community against polio. I want to thank UNICEF and WHO, and indeed everyone making sure that polio becomes a thing of the past,” she said.

Meanwhile, the Toro Local Government Area Local Immunisation Officer (LIO), Musa Danladi disclosed that he received a total 241,150 doses of Novel Oral Polio vaccine (NOPV) as support from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to vaccinate 196, 220 under five children.

Danladi noted that the support from UNICEF which covers logistics, training, advocacy and sensitization is helping to reverse the situation of zero dose immunization in the State.

He explained further that 1,477 personnel were recruited for the exercise to ensure that unreached children are vaccinated in all the 17 wards in Toro local government area.

He said: “The support from UNICEF is timely and will reduced drastically cases of zero-dose children in Toro. We are doing everything humanly possible to ensure we reach the target we want.

“If we compare with the last time, this campaign is better. There were lots of activities before the commencement which included trainings, advocates and sensitization, and this has helped to increase participation in the ongoing campaign.

“Before, we had security challenges and our teams were unable to go to some settlements and conduct immunization. To surmount this challenge, we discussed with security agencies who gave us maximum support to go to every settlement in the LGA.”