Bilharzia : Jigawa to immunise 2.5m children

From Mika’il Tsoho Dutse

The Jigawa state government has flagged off the immunization campaign against Bilharzia and schistosomiasis across the state.
The Executive Chairman, Jigawa State Universal Basic Education (SUBEB) Alhaji Salisu Zakari who lead the flagging-off campaign said, about 2.5 million children are targeted to be immunised during the exercise.
According to him, the targeted population include primary schools pupils, almajiris and out of school children in 25 out of 27 local government areas in the state.
Zakar who flagged off the campaign in Yakabu Pilot Primary School, Birnin Kudu, said his board, the state Ministry of Health in collaboration with a development partner, Health and Development Support Programme planned to implement the programme in the state.
“The campaign was not initiated as result of outbreak of the diseases but rather it was conceived as part of the proactive measure to improve on both the mental and physical fitness of pupils in the state and the entire population,” he said.
The chairman revealed that, a sample of pupils urine was taken from 20 schools in each of the 27 local government of the state and the cases was discovered in 25 local government, while Maigatari and Gumel local government sample prove negative.
He explained that, owing to what was discovered, the government decided to scale up the programme to cover the entire state.
”We have reached many Alarammas (heads of Tsangay) to ensure their almajiris are immunized, and also the general public were sanitized to ensure those children who are out of school are taken to any nearest primary school for the drugs” said chairman.
“The drugs for the immunization were donated free to the state government by our development partner, Health and Development Support Programme. SUBEB only provided the logistics. At the end of the exercise we are expected to cover about 80 percent of the targeted population.“