Presidential Research & Communications Unit

The First Lady of Nigeria, Mrs Turai Umaru Yar’adua on Monday July 28 met with some spouses of State Governors, on ‘How to Improve Maternal and Child Health and Eradication of Polio in Nigeria’, in her office at the Presidential Villa Abuja.

This meeting came after President Umaru Musa Yar’adua had promised to support complete polio eradication in Nigeria by the end of 2009.

Hajia Turai at the meeting stated that quality healthcare delivery is on the priority list of this administration, hence the rationale for huge investment in the health sector, particularly on immunization activities.

She described poor performance of health care system, particularly at the local level, as one of the major reasons many children in the country do not have access to health services.

The First Lady urged the Governors’ wives to rally together all stakeholders, government and developmental partners, in their bids to immunize children against polio and other vaccine preventable diseases. With this Nigeria can meet new global target of wiping out the wild polio virus from Nigeria by 2009. Nigeria remains the only polio endemic country in Africa and one of four remaining polio endemic countries globally.

Speaking at the meeting, the Executive Director of National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr. Titilola .I. Koleoso- Adelekan said currently, fifteen states are endemic with Wild Polio Virus, these are all the states in the North West (Kano, Katsina, Kaduna, Kebbi, Jigawa, Sokoto and Zamfara States); four states in North East i.e. Borno, Bauchi, Gombe and Yobe; two in the North Central i.e. FCT and Niger as well as Enugu and Oyo states from Southern parts.

She said the First Lady and wives of the Governors could champion the cause of healthcare particularly in the following areas; advocacy to State and LGA Executives and Policy Makers, Media Campaigns, Community Sensitization and Mobilization.

Mrs. Koleoso-Adelekan disclosed that incidences of very low immunization coverage continue to sustain high occurrence and out breaks of vaccine Preventable Diseases and Wild Polio Virus. She said there is upsurge in the number of WPV cases, as at Friday, 25th of July there are 508 WPV cases reported in 22 states (less than 200 cases were reported during the same period last year).

Minister of Health, Dr. Hassan Lawal said Nigeria is one of the major carriers of polio virus, but with support of Wives of State Governors, who are close to the grassroots, the virus will efface. He called on the State Governments to allocate available funds to the health sector, which is quite minimal.

In attendance were Wives of Governors from Bauchi, Borno, Kaduna, Katsina, Kano, Sokoto and Zamfara States as well as development partners.