How Borno journalists sensitise IDPs on health issues

Journalists in Borno State under the aegis of Journalists Against Polio (JAP) have organised a mobile broadcast in 16 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps and other host communities in Maiduguri and Jere to sensitise them and other people on emerging health issues. Over 100,000 IDPs and 600,000 people in the host communities have already been […]

Journalists in Borno State under the aegis of Journalists Against Polio (JAP) have organised a mobile broadcast in 16 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps and other host communities in Maiduguri and Jere to sensitise them and other people on emerging health issues.

Over 100,000 IDPs and 600,000 people in the host communities have already been sensitised on meningitis, cholera, personal and environmental hygiene, as well as polio and other childhood killer diseases.

The programme is supported by United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in collaboration with Primary Healthcare Development Agency.

Four children were discovered to have been paralysed by wild polio virus in Borno in July and August 2016. All the victims were discovered to be under the captivity of insurgents, before they were rescued by military troops.

The broadcast, first of its kind in Borno State, is expected to cover all camps in the metropolis as well as satellite camps in the liberated communities.

The recent outbreak of meningitis in some parts of the country which claimed hundreds of lives and discovery of three polio cases in the state informed the decision to embark on the awareness drive.

Borno State JAP Coordinator,  Mrs. Pauline Ibrahim said that “JAP which is a volunteer work by journalists in collaboration with Borno State government and UNICEF decided to organise the programme in camps because IDPs are cut off from access to information on health.”

The IDPs were also enlightened on the importance of routine immunization and reporting any case of weakness of the limbs of a child less than 15 years which is caused by Acute Flaccid Paralysis, AFP.

Mallam Adamu Ali, an IDP  thanked JAP for visiting Dalori I Camp to sensitize them on the need to immunize their children and defeat polio virus.

Some of the camps visited include Dalori 1 and 2, Bakasi , Muna Garage, Gubio road, Christian Association of Nigeria , among others.

On the effort to nip polio in the state, JAP Coordinator, Mrs. Ibrahim said that fewer cases of rejection have been recorded in the March 2017 round of polio immunization in Borno State, signalling a push to end the disease.

“Most residents especially in Maiduguri, Borno’s capital made their children five years and below available for vaccination at various immunization centres. Few cases of rejection of the polio vaccine were recorded at Gomari and Bulabulin Ngaranam area of the metropolis, but was later resolved by traditional leaders in the area,”  Ibrahim said.

Scores of supervisors, health workers including 1,817 house-to-house vaccinators had been trained earlier by development partners including UNICEF, Rotary International, and  Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation  in conjuction with Borno State government.

The exercise which took off in six high risk local government of Maiduguri Metropolitan Council, Monguno, Gubio, Mafa, Konduga and Jere have been largely successful, before it was extended to other local government areas across the state.

She said that health providers and stakeholders involved in campaigns to end polio; have canvassed for more synergy among agencies,groups and bodies to ensure the success of the vaccination exercise in the state.

She said some residents of Bulabulin-Nganaram ward, seized by Boko Haram in 2014, refused to allow their children take polio vaccine in the just-concluded Immunization plus Days exercise.

However, she added that the cooperation among humanitarian organisations involved in supports for victims of insurgency in the state and polio immunization campaigners by JAP have removed such barrier as the

residents and parents are now willing and participated fully in the exercise.

Also seeing what JAP is doing, some local governments in Borno State believed to be vulnerable to polio outbreak due to refusal of some parents to allow their children participate in the immunization exercise have pledged to support new round of campaigns to end the disease.

“About 1,200 children (age five and below) in 539 households in Maiduguri Metropolitan Council (MMC) and Jere as well as hundreds of children at Konduga and Mafa local governments in the state were said to have refused to take polio vaccination, but with the coming of JAP and other agencies, everything change with full compliance,” said Ibrahim.

Traditional rulers and other stakeholders of the affected local governments have however pledged to step up and sustain campaigns and mobilize their people to participate in any of the round up polio vaccination.

This can be attested to the recent polio round up in April, 2017 where there was a record of full compliance and participation by all and sundry.

“We are already mobilizing. We’ve involved the traditional rulers in the process and campaigns are going on to disabuse the minds of our people on certain misconception about polio vaccine. We won’t allow poliovirus to have a place in our local government,” Chairman Konduga Local Government, Alhaji Audu Ladan told a team from JAP.