Group trains Yobe traditional leaders,health personnel on polio campaign

By Yusuf A Yusuf, Damaturu 

The sultan foundation for peace and development in collaboration with Yobe state primary health care management board,Chigari foundation and other development partners during the weekend facilitated a one day training workshop for traditional leaders,and primary health care personnel on polio campaign effectiveness in the state 

The meeting brought together health officials, community leaders, and experts in immunization from Gujba LGA discussed strategies for increasing awareness, improving outreach, and ensuring access to vaccines, particularly in underserved areas.

The Executive Secretary ,Yobe State Primary Health Care Management Board,(YSPHCMB) Dr. Baba Gana Kundi Machina explained,the workshop focuses on  strategy shift program for selecting polio campaign personnel to improve effectiveness and coverage.  

Represented by the Deputy State Health Promotion Officer,Mr Bula Maru,Dr Machina said,sometimes, poor team selection leads to inadequate immunization coverage."For example, when personnel are transferred from neighboring wards, they may not know all the settlements or households they need to visit".  

He revealed that,to address this, the Primary Health Care Board, in collaboration with the Sultan Foundation,Chigari foundation and other development partners has introduced this new strategic shift. 

"It involves community leaders particularly traditional leaders in selecting personnel from their own domains, settlements, and communities.  

"This ensures better immunization coverage and performance because the teams are locally based. There’s no need to transfer outsiders who don’t know the area or the households.," said Dr Machina.

In an interview with Blueprint correspondent during the meeting in Damaturu,Ibrahim Mohamed Bande, a program officer from the Chigari Foundation,said the meeting is to sensitize the traditional leaders as they work in partnership with the Sultan Foundation.

"The meeting objective is to ensure that the foundation orient these traditional leader particularly the district heads, settlement heads, and others on the new approach in the polio immunization program.  

"This shift in immunization aims to ensure that the teams participating in polio campaigns are fully selected or nominated at the grassroots level by the traditional leaders.This way, we have proper representation of team members working on polio in their own communities.  

"We want to avoid a situation where a team assigned to work in a specific ward comes from a different ward, lacking familiarity with the area’s layout, information, or background."Said Bande

The Sultan Foundation is a foundation linked to the Sultanate.They collaborate with all Area Monitoring Assistants and are actively involved in engaging traditional structures across northern Nigeria to improve polio immunization and other immunization campaigns in the country.