Dr. Fred Okem, the Executive Chairman, of Yala Local Government Area has restated his commitment to the development of health infrastructure to provide adequate health care for the people of the area.

Dr. Okem gave the reassurance on Saturday in Okpoma while flagging off the four-day National immunisation plus Days and African Vacination Week organised by the Federal Ministry of Health inconjunction with the World Health Organisation (WHO).

He said health is wealth and a healthy population is an enormous benefit to the local government area therefore his administration will continue to give adequate support to health facilities to strengthen them to provide adequate healthcare to the people .

“The Governor of this state, Apostle ,Senator, Prince Edet Otu is committed to the provision of good healthcare for the people so also is his wife, Bishop Eyoanwan Otu in the same light we in Yala will do our best to ensue we follow the footsteps of His Excellency, the Sweet Prince and his dear wife to provide good health care to our people”.

He said recently when he visited the Okpoma Comprehensive Health Centre to commission the tuberculosis diagnosis machine, the Primary Health Care Director for the local government area, Dr Mrs Augustina Okem lamented over the poor state of the building and absence of refrigeration facilities for storage of immunisation items, he swung into action and provided solar storage equipment and those equipment will be useful in the implementation. Of the four-day polio immunisation exercise

Mrs Efionawan Edet, the Technical Facilitator for the Immunisation programme said the benefit of the exercise is unquantifiable to the children and called on all parents with children zero to fifty months to make them available for immunisation during the four days exercise.

“Today is the flag off of the programme and in.the next four days, we shall be visiting churches, schools, homes and anywhere we can locate children to get them vaccinated.”

Mr. Emmanuel Ikwen, the WHO Representative for Yala Local Government Area said the notion that polio is not prevalent in.the southern part of the country should be discarded because those in areas where polio is prevalent move from their areas to the southern part and can bring with them the virus therefore, mothers should make their children available for immunisation.

The highlight of the flag off was the administration of the vaccine on.some children by Dr Okem, his wife Dr Augustina Okem and other dignitaries at the venue of the flag off, Comprehensive Health Centre, Oba, Okpoma.