Village Islamic extremists did Iman Alhaji Ghana in North-Eastern Nigeria is too dangerous for health workers to be vaccinated against polio. Now that she and her family fled to a displaced persons ‘ camp, the workers who want to catch her children in time.
Here in the camps housing thousands of families, fleeing from extremists groups health go from tent to tent, instilling in young people against the disease which withers the limbs and disabled children for life.
First, Ghana is afraid to let workers to vaccinate her child. In the end, they convince her that a three-week child too young for immunization, which can be held on the day of birth.
In the difficult fight against polio is yet another way of Nigeria-based extremist group Boko Haram have disrupted life in the North-East, making children vulnerable to easily treatable disease.
“When these children come to the camps or host communities, they will become a threat to other children,” said Almai some field coordinator in Borno state in the vaccination campaign carried out by rotary.
Some of the arriving families from areas where polio vaccinators are unable to visit in over six years.
The insurgency of Boko Haram began in Maiduguri, capital of Borno state, but his achievements have gone beyond the borders of Nigeria into neighboring Niger, Chad and Cameroon. Violence has become a major obstacle to the international campaign against polio.
Nigeria is one of only three countries where polio is endemic and has not been eliminated, along with Pakistan and Afghanistan. At the final stage to eradicate polio “is proving to be extremely difficult”, as “polio virus survives, despite all the good work and face all that is thrown at him,” said someone assigned to the control group at the end of last year.
In Nigeria, there is little or no monitoring data, in Borno state, “unless there is a breakthrough to get to those areas in Borno, the entire polio (eradication) program is under threat,” said the monitoring group. Nigeria other flashes last year, including cholera, hepatitis, Monkeypox, yellow fever and Lassa showing problems in the health system of the country. The global campaign to eradicate polio has faced outbreaks in the last year in non-endemic countries like the Congo and Syria.
The world health organization declared Nigeria free of polio in September 2015 after he went for a year without any new cases. But in 2016 — after two years without a case — fresh cases of polio broke out in three locations in Borno state. No new cases were reported in Nigeria in 2017 or so far this year.
Now who said she will spend $ 127 million on polio eradication in Nigeria between 2018 and 2019. Rotary program helps that effort by targeting some 2.1 million children in 24 local authorities. But there are still three areas in Borno state, which are not included due to ongoing instability: Cala Balga, March and Abadam. For those inaccessible areas, the vaccinators to train Nigerian soldiers in the use of vaccines.
In some cases, the villagers said, threatened the militants of the “Boko Haram” to avoid the polio vaccine. And in 2013 the number of vaccinators was attacked and killed by the extremists, leading some of their colleagues to disguise their carriers vaccine or hide them under the hijab.
In addition to the threat posed by Boko Haram, some communities remain wary of a vaccine against polio after years of misinformation, it can lead to infertility and other health problems.
“Many people now accept the polio vaccine, but there are more cases of failures here and there and we do our best to address them,” said Digma noticed the head of the district in Shehuri-North.
Falmata Colo, a 21-year-old volunteer with the outreach program, rotary Polio plus, she said she is working to convince people that vaccinations are safe.
“I also tell them, If Your kids contract polio and grew to understand that his or her parent had the opportunity to prevent the disease, but failed, the child will never forgive their parents,” she said. “This kind of message actually spur many mothers offer their children the vaccine.”
Fatima Mohamed, a 45-year-old mother of six children, says that parents should take the vaccine.
“Today we have children who have had the vaccine about 15 years ago, who are married and even having children of her own,” she says. “So my advice to my fellow mothers with children in the age bracket (6 years old) to get them to get the vaccine, because it is good.”
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Larson reported from Dakar, Senegal.
Sourse: abcnews.go.com
