Second Round Immunisation Begins In Rivers ’Morrow

All is now set for the second round of the National Immunisation Plus Days (NIPDs), to begin in Rivers State from March 2 to 5, 2013.

The Director, Community Health, Rivers State Primary Healthcare Management Board (PHCMB), Isaac Opurum, while addressing State Mobilisation Officers (SMOs) and members of the State Mobilisation Committee (SMC) at a training forum, charged them to ensure that the state is adequately mobilized, particularly the hard-to-reach places and the non-compliant areas, saying that every child under five years in the state must be immunized.

Dr Opurum assured that modalities for the successful implementation of the exercise has been put in place, adding that the PHCMB would stop at nothing in ensuring that the state, which has been free of polio for the past ten year, remains free.

He charged health workers to educate parents and care givers on the safety of repeated does of the polio vaccine in boosting the immunity of the child, while thanking the state government for its efforts in ensuring that this round of NIPDs was successful.

In her remarks, the state Health Educator, Ministry of Health, Doris Nria, called on the people of the state, especially, traditional rulers religious leaders, and mothers to embrace the  March round of the NIPDs, saying, it would benefit the society if children were immunized against some of the world’s leading childhood killer diseases.

Dr Nria, who led a delegation of the SMC on an advocacy visit to the Muslim community in Port Harcourt, told the Muslim leaders that it was important that their children were allowed to be vaccined. She enjoined them to encourage their believers and congregation to accept the oral polio vaccine, and assured on the safety of the vaccine.

In his response, the Vice President-Generall, Jama-atu Nasril Islam, Alhaji Abubakar Orlu, promised that the Muslim community would embrace the exercise and present their children to be immunized.