By Joke Adeniyi-Jackson
As part of measures to ensure good turnout for the immunisation programme in Kwara State, children were given free noodles among other complimentary gifts by health workers upon vaccination, last week.
Our reporter, who went round Ilorin metropolis last Thursday, observed that mothers and care givers came out in their numbers for the exercise.
Noodles is a staple food that has become favourite meal for children in contemporary time.
The health workers were sighted going from house to house administering both oral and injectable vaccine on children and subsequently giving them a pack of noodles each.
The immunisation programme for children from 0 to 59 months which begun in Ilorin, the Kwara capital penultimate Sunday was rounded up on Friday.
The children under the age of 0 to 59 months were vaccinated for IPV, OPV, PCV, BCG, PENTA, Hep B, Measles and Yellow fever.
Commenting on the programme during a chat with National Pilot, the State Mobilisation Officer, Kwara State Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr Dupe Shittu expressed satisfaction over the turnout of mothers and care givers for the immunisation exercise.
She explained that the immunisation programme was informed as a result of active transmission of polio virus in the state, which called for urgent preventive action.
According to her , the oral and injectable vaccines administered on children is meant to further boost their immunity against the virus.
She said children were given complimentary gifts as a form of appreciation and encourage others to come out for the vaccination towards making the state polio free.
It would be recalled that two years after Nigeria missed being certified polio free, another polio case was confirmed in a three-year-old girl at Baruten LGA in Kwara State.
The suspected polio case discovered in January this year was confirmed as a vaccine-derived polio virus.
