ADENIYI OLUGBEMI writes on the challenges that may hinder the eradication of poliomyelitis in Sokoto State
hajiya Zainab Abdulnaseer is a fitting description of ability in disability. Against all odds, Abdulnaseer, a master’s degree holder, is a survivor of polio.
A mother of three and currently Assistant Director, News, at the NTA, Sokoto Network Centre, Abdulnaseer has become committed to child immunisation against polio and other killer diseases.
She said, “I gathered from my mother that I walked at seven months and it was around when I was a year old that I had severe fever and I was given an injection. There on, I was unable to seat but could only crawl. My mother only told me that she took me to hospital for routine injection.
“My disability actually robbed me of becoming a medical doctor. Even as a physically challenged, I scored the required marks and gained admission to the Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, in 1990 to study Medicine, but I was advised to apply for a change of course.
“My advice to parents is that polio is real and we have to protect our children with the free vaccines. As a survivor, I can say that polio does not end only with disability. There are aged-related pains and trauma that come with it.”
Despite the warnings arising from her personal experience, some parents have been accused of generating new ways to shield their children from the polio vaccines.
This among other problems, such as inadequate logistics in the areas of transportation, poor roads and difficult terrains among others, plagued the November round of Fractional-dose Inactivated Polio Vaccine/Oral Polio Vaccine immunisation in Sokoto.
A vaccinator in Yabo ‘B’ ward, who participated in the October round polio immunisation and spoke on condition of anonymity, related her experience to our correspondent.
He stated, “Last month round of polio immunisation was my second time experience as a vaccinator and the level of non-compliance at Yabo ‘B’ ward, was higher than Yabo ‘A’, during my first experience.
“I discovered that some people, due to their religious beliefs, didn’t allow their children to be vaccinated against polio or any other killer diseases. My encounter at a particular house was shocking.
“When we arrived in the house with a colleague and asked the woman to bring out her under-five children for vaccination, the woman brought out her daughter and showed us her finger nail marked with a pen, an indication that she had been vaccinated.
“To our surprise, the usual code mark on houses where children had been vaccinated was not on the wall of her house and when probed further, the woman shut the door against us. Luckily on our way back, we saw the little girl and asked her who marked her finger nail, the girl innocently replied Baba na, (my father).’’
SUNDAY PUNCH investigation also revealed that many people of a religious sect refused to allow their kids participate in the exercise despite persuasion from traditional, religious and opinion leaders.
Some sources told our correspondent that these adherents at times, confused vaccinators by marking their houses with the code to give the impression that their houses had been visited and their children vaccinated.
Further investigation showed that some mothers refused the vaccination of their children on the excuse that the vaccines brought to them had expired. They would later discharge the vaccinators on the excuse that they would rather go to the health facility for the vaccines but wouldn’t do so.
Polio Communication Lead for UNICEF in Sokoto, Pius Attandoh, who denied knowledge of the situation, said, “If there is anything of such, it will be rare.
“What I am aware of is that because of the plus we give alongside the immunisation like noodles, some caregivers try to clean the ink on a kid’s hands, so that the child can get extra, not knowing that the skin quickly absorbs the ink.
“With the kind of supervision mechanism we have in place, it is difficult for all that to happen. Each mark on the wall is peculiar and it is not everybody that can decode it. It could mean no vaccine was administered in a particular house, no eligible child or the child is absent. The mark is there for superior officer to do follow up.”
Attandoh, however, said there could be a situation where a house was not marked during the exercise.
He said, “Where the mother complies against the father’s wish, since our focus is on the child, and we don’t want to break any marriage, we respect the wish of the mother, by quietly immunising the child and leaving the house unmarked.
“Where there is non-compliance, we have a peculiar mark and the list of such houses are compiled and forwarded to higher authorities. Another essence of the mark is to monitor if the vaccinators do their work.”
Also, the Sokoto State Coordinator, Journalists Against Polio, Abdallah el-Kurebe, said the non-compliance with immunisation was predominantly among the poor and uneducated parents.
El-Kurebe recalled a scenario where an academic rejected the vaccination of his children, adding that when the state polio immunisation mobilisation committee forcefully vaccinated his children, the said lecturer sought legal redress and won.
The JAP coordinator said, “If citizens rely on government for all these, they should be seen to abide by all rules and regulations to achieve a healthy society. This informs the need to comply with preventive measures put in place by government. Non-compliance must be punished.”
A World Health Organisation Consultant in Sokoto, Dr Larai Tambuwal, said there was five per cent rejection of the vaccines in the state.
Tambuwal said, “We are almost there, but might not get there unless more commitment from all stakeholders is demonstrated. As long as polio exists anywhere, children everywhere are at risk.”
Available records indicate that the healthcare cost savings attributable to the campaign to eradicate polio are estimated at billions of dollars through the year 2035. Also, the net benefit of the entire polio eradication programme, such as the supplemental vitamins included in oral vaccines, is estimated to have generated about $90bn in savings and prevented an additional 5.4 million infant deaths.
Unlike Abdulnaseer, who is from a privileged family, the situation is different for 36-year-old Ahmed Goronyo, another polio survivor, who blamed his disability on his parents’ poor and illiterate background.
Ahmed, a cobbler, told SUNDAY PUNCH that even when he asked his parents what was responsible for the state of his disabled right leg, the only response his father gave him before he died was that it was his destiny.
He said, “His argument was that none of his children took polio vaccine and for only me to be disabled, it was my destiny.
“Even when other polio survivors traced their disability to lack of polio vaccines and I inquired from my father whether I ever took the vaccines, he told me that he was unaware of such vaccine.”
The father of two, who spoke in Hausa, said when it dawned on his parents that he was the only person with disability in their village, they decided to keep him indoors so that they would not be object of ridicule.
“I cannot go to Islamiyya School with my siblings or play around with my peers because of my disability. My liberation came when my maternal uncle brought me to Sokoto, got me a walking stick and later made me learn shoemaking.
“Now that I know the consequence of not taking polio vaccine, I made sure none of my two children missed their immunisation,” he said.
According to SUNDAY PUNCH investigation, the last case of polio in Sokoto State was in 2012 at Lahodu, Wurno Local Government Area, where, Abdullahi Keli, now 10, was identified. Since then, there has not been any reported case.
Keli is now a reference point during immunisation campaign and advocacy particularly in and around Wurno council, a focal area in the state for the fight against polio.
With 222 cases in Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2012, Nigeria only recorded four cases in 2016 and in this outgoing year, no new case of polio has been recorded.
The state government in collaboration with UNICEF introduced fractional-dose inactivated polio vaccine, with the oral polio vaccine during the November 2018 round in select local government areas.
FIPV benefits children preciously vaccinated for polio as well as the zero-dose children. It boosts the immunity of children who have previously received OPV. FIPV could be given alone or at the same time with any OPV vaccine.
During the recently concluded six-day immunisation, FIVP was given by intra muscular injection while OPV administered orally. However, it was a win-win situation as every child that came out for the vaccination, smiled home with one pack of noodles.
Though government at all levels and donor partners are trying to confine poliomyelitis to history bin, there are efforts to subvert the total eradication of polio, even when the erroneous impression that polio vaccines are targeted to depopulate Africa had been demystified with scientific proof.
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