From: Femi Oyelola, Kaduna
The World Health Organization (WHO) has expressed dismay over insecurity in some communities in the Northwest region.
The Country Representative, Dr Walter Kazadi Mulombo, stated this during the strategic meeting of Northern Traditional Rulers Council and National Primary Health Care Development Agency, (NPHCDA), on how to reach inaccessible communities in the North West with vaccines in Kaduna yesterday.
According to him, 92 per cent of the new cases of Circulating Variant Polio Virus type 2 (cVPV2) recorded between January and August 2023, were from the region.
Dr Mulombo explained that the Nigerian polio statistics of week 32, 2023, indicates that the isolation of the circulating variant polio virus type 2 (cVPV2) has reduced by 63 per cent in Nigeria when 2023 and 2022 were compared.
“The ongoing inaccessibility to the delivery of PHC services to communities in the North East, Nigeria and more recently, North West has continued to bring setbacks to Nigeria in achieving Universal Health Coverage: Especially in the instances where vaccination teams cannot access communities because of the fear of being kidnapped or killed.
“51 cases of cVPV2 have so far been detected between January and 13 August 2023 from 15 LGAs. However, 47 of the 51 cases (92%) are from this axis of the North West Nigeria. The majority of the cases are from states with security challenges in the region. In Kaduna state, there are 19 LGAs involving 111 wards with insecure settlements. This poses a serious risk to the success recorded so far,” he said.
