Polio immunization holds Oct 14-17

The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has said the October 2017 round of Immunisation Plus Days (SIPD) in the FCT is scheduled for 14th to 17th October. The Acting Executive Secretary, FCT Primary Health Care Board (FCT-PHCB), Dr. Matthew Ashikeni, disclosed this during the flag-off of the exercise at the weekend in Durumi-Abuja.  He said […]

The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has said the October 2017 round of Immunisation Plus Days (SIPD) in the FCT is scheduled for 14th to 17th October.

The Acting Executive Secretary, FCT Primary Health Care Board (FCT-PHCB), Dr. Matthew Ashikeni, disclosed this during the flag-off of the exercise at the weekend in Durumi-Abuja. 

He said the board has made available over 900,000 doses of the vaccine. He recalled that in July, the board planned to vaccinate about 750,000 children, but that at the end of the round, it vaccinated 890, 000 children.

Ashikeni revealed that the exercise has 1,166 house-to-house teams, 300 special teams, 65 senior supervisors, 48 monitors and 260 supervisors, from the National Primary Health Care Agency (NPHCA), to be deployed to the field.

“Apart from the house-to-house exercise, our team members will go to all the nooks and crannies including churches, markets, mosques, the streets and anywhere children are living. 

“So this time, we will also visit the farm lands, slums, nomadic settlements and everywhere we have children under five, to ensure that they are vaccinated against polio disease.”

Ashikeni therefore called on parents, especially mothers, to make their children available for the exercise and seek routine immunization for their children in about 250 primary health care facilities in FCT communities, free of charge.

Flagging-off the exercise, the secretary, FCTA Health and Human Services Secretariat (HHSS), Barr Amanda Pam, stated that sensitisation  and mobilisation of Nigerians on polio immunisation will continue until the last traces of polio went out of the country.

Pam advised FCT residents to imbibe the culture of cleanliness, hands washing and environmental cleanliness to avoid polio and other diseases in the territory.