Emir of Kano, Malam Muhammadu Sanusi II has flagged off the second phase of measles campaign in Ajingi local government area to ensure completion of the exercise in the remaining 19 local government areas slated for the exercise in the state.
The exercise, flagged off under the Emirate Council Committee on Health (KECCoH) in collaboration with development Research and Projects Centre (dRPC), World Health Organization (WHO) and other stakeholders in education and health sectors, is to ensure effective measles immunization in the state this year.
The Emir urged residents of the respective local councils to fully partake and ensure success of the exercise which would help in reducing the number of children and women death from preventable diseases.
He said there was a need to take good care of women and children as they constituted over 70% of the nation’s population and that would result into a better nation capable of attaining national development.
In his address, representative of dRPC, Malam Ubale Rano, said that the centre had been working on various aspects to ensure that girl retention in schools has been increased, adding that the support the emir was giving to the girl child education is worthy of emulation by every well-meaning Nigerian.
More than two million, five hundred children within the age range of nine months to five years are expected to be immunized against measles in the 44 local government areas of Kano state.
Earlier last week, the state governor, who was represented at the first phase flag off ceremony by the state’s Commissioner for health Dr Kabiru Ibrahim Getso, revealed that a whooping sum of seventy three million naira (N73m) has been released for the take off of the immunization exercise in the government areas.
The governor, in a statement issued by the press secretary Kano state ministry of health, Ismail Garba Gwammaja, enjoined parents and all other care givers not to relent in bringing their wards to the nearest health facility for vaccinations against measles stressing that the diseases is one of the deadliest.
He also urged parents to keep their children’s vaccination cards securely for record purpose.
