By Perpetua Onuegbu/Angela Atabo
The Rotary Club, District 9127, RC Abuja, Maitama, says hundreds of children across the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have received its life-saving polio vaccines.
Speaking at the medical outreach on Thursday in Abaji, Abuja, the District Governor of 9127, Dr Joy Okoro, said the efforts aimed to eradicate the disease in Nigeria.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the event was part of the activities to commemorate the 2025 International Polio Day.
Okoro, who headed the Abaji area council outreach, said the exercise took place across the six area councils in the FCT with five other District governors heading the activities in the remaining five area councils.
She noted that the initiative aimed to ensure that no child under the age of five was left unvaccinated against the crippling disease.
She explained that the exercise was part of Rotary’s mission to take action through service projects to improve their local communities.
“This exercise is being organised by my district 9127, in conjunction with other district governors; I am heading the Abaji team.
“We also have five District Governors, two from Lagos and one each from Akure, Port Harcourt and Owerri who came into Abuja for this purpose and they are heading the activities in the other five area councils .
“We are here to mark the World Polio Day, which is actually tomorrow, and we will be commemorating it with a mega road walk.
“We are reaching more than 1,000 children for this exercise. As you can see we have vaccinated a lot of babies here today, even the newborns, like those just two days old.”
Okoro encouraged parents to keep bringing their children to health facilities for vaccination to avoid the disease.
According to her, it is free and nobody will charge them because Rotary and Partners have already paid for these vaccines.
She recalled that Rotary took the polio sensitisation to Mosques on Friday and to Churches on Sunday, adding that the exercise has been moving round to ensure that polio is eradicated in Nigeria.
Also speaking, Dr Saleh Ashafa, Director, Primary Health Care, Abaji Area Council, commended Rotary Club for the initiative.
Ashafa noted that community partnerships like Rotary Club have been instrumental in sustaining Nigeria’s polio-free status.
“On behalf of the area council, I appreciate the Rotary Club for choosing to come to Abaji today and celebrate this day with us, with our children, our mothers.
“It is a thing of joy, and I hope we will also be celebrating the end of polio in Nigeria too.
“Routine immunisation is one of the pillars of PHC services. We provide routine immunisation in all our 34 functional health facilities because we know that it is one of the key pillars of the polio eradication initiative.”
According to Ashafa, the area council leadership is doing everything possible to ensure that every baby before the first birthday gets fully immunised so that he or she can be prevented from the childhood killer diseases.
He identified poor road network to lack of maintenance of cold chain facilities, insecurity as some challenges facing people in the area.
He explained that Abaji had about 40 per cent of its settlements which were far to reach.
He added that the government at the council was doing everything possible to ensure every child in those settlements gets immunised appropriately.
Participating parents from various communities expressed gratitude to the Rotary Club for their support.
A beneficiary, Mrs Safia Zakaria, nursing mother, said “I am happy that my children have been vaccinated. It gives me peace of mind, and I also thank the organisers for giving me souvenirs,” she added. (NAN)