Delta Govt assures partners of commitment to improve health

By Nosa Akenzua, Asaba

Delta State Government has assured donors of its commitment to continue in improving the health indices of the state and the status of residents.

The state Commissioner for Health, Dr Mordi Ononye, made this known on  Tuesday when the Immunization Team from the United States Centre for Disease Control (CDC) paid him a courtesy visit in his office.

The Commissioner hinted that the state government was very concerned about the wellbeing of its citizenry across the various age divide such as the young, youths and the elderly.

He said that the state had a governor who was interested in the health of the population and closely monitors activities that relate to immunization and other health issues.

“We have a Governor who is passionate about the activities in the health sector in the primary, secondary and tertiary areas of healthcare and who does not hesitate to do the needful as far as the health sector is concerned.

“We hope that with this visit and interactions with the State Primary Health Care Development Agency we will begin to experience an upward move in our health indices climbing out of where we are presently ranked to where we ought to be with the resources made available,” he said.

Earlier, the Immunization Director, United States Centre for Disease Control, Dr Omotayo Bolu, said that as part of the global polio eradication efforts, they were in state to encourage, advocate and support strengthening responses.

While commending the state for the efforts made through the Delta State Primary Health Care Development Agency, she called for more support from the government in terms of mobilization and advocacy to get more persons to come out for vaccination.

“Vaccines are the cheapest public health interventions globally that has reduced millions of deaths worldwide.

“Vaccines definitely will make a lot of difference in the lives of our children and even adults as it concerns COVID-19 as it is one of the best public health interventions that has ever been invented,” she added.

According to her, “Nigeria has the greatest number of unimmunized children in the world with about 25 to 30 %of global unimmunized children beating India which has a larger population than Nigeria hence a lot of work has to be done by the Nigerian government to address these figures.”

She stated that one or two recorded case of polio was termed as an outbreak and therefore all hands must be on deck to rid the state of any trace of polio.