Katsina records 11 months without new polio case after mass immunization campaign
via Punch Nigeria3 min read
Katsina State has achieved 11 consecutive months without a new polio case, following a mass immunization campaign that reached over 2.9 million children. This milestone was announced by Heartland Alliance LTD/GTE HALG during World Immunisation Week 2026. Dr. Bartholomew Ochonye, Chief Executive Officer of HALG, stated that while this progress is significant, the fight against polio remains fragile. The campaign, which began in April 2025, involved over 4,000 field teams conducting house-to-house enumeration across 2,356 hard-to-reach settlements, covering more than 836,000 households and vaccinating over 1.6 million children in its first phase. HALG also led a statewide micro-planning exercise across all 34 local government areas to improve vaccination accuracy. Despite these gains, the campaign revealed that over 50,000 children identified had never received a single vaccine dose before the intervention. Major obstacles persist, including insecurity preventing access to some settlements, vaccine hesitancy, cold chain limitations, and weak health infrastructure. Dr. Ochonye emphasized the need for sustained funding for last-mile immunization systems, including enumeration, community engagement, and monitoring, to ensure that all children, especially those in hard-to-reach areas, are consistently reached. Nigeria was declared free of wild poliovirus in 2020, but outbreaks of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus continue to pose a threat, particularly in northern states with
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This summary was AI-generated from a story originally published by Punch Nigeria.
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