By John Momoh
As Nigeria marks 3 years and 10 months without a new wild poliovirus case, here is how the program has contributed to the Polio Eradication initiative in Borno State since 2016:
Inaccessibility to some settlements in North East, Nigeria presents a great challenge to the immunization program in states like Adamawa, Borno, and Yobe states where the ongoing conflict is most severe. Health facilities in these states have been destroyed leading to a reduced number of eligible children being reached with Routine Immunization (RI) services. The mass displacement of people, migration from settlements, and insecurity have all hindered the planning and execution of Supplementary Immunization Activities (SIAs) such as Immunization Plus Days (IPDs) and Outbreak Response (OBR) campaigns in the region.
A child receives his vaccination at a settlement in Maiduguri, Borno state during an IPD campaign
In 2016, after a wild poliovirus outbreak in Borno, the Borno State Primary Health Care Development Agency (BSPHCDA), in close collaboration with World Health Organization (WHO), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), eHealth Africa (eHA), Solina Health and other partners, launched the Reach Every Settlement (RES) and the Reaching Inaccessible Children (RIC) to access under-5 children in partially Hard to Reach (HTR) and HTR settlements respectively in order to interrupt the transmission of the virus.
Polio eradication partners at a working group meeting
eHealth Africa has been supporting the projects by leveraging our expertise in Geographic Information Systems, field operations, and logistics to collect and analyze geospatial data to aid near real-time monitoring of the program and decision-making by the state and relevant key stakeholders.