COVID-19: US-CDC recognises traditional leaders as catalysts to curb infections

United States Centre for Disease Control (US-CDC), has recognised traditional leaders in Nigeria as catalysts and key players in curbing the pandemic as efforts continue to improve on the ongoing COVID-19 vaccine campaign across Nigeria.

Country Director of US-CDC, Dr Mary Boyd, made an assertion at the third Quarter Northern Traditional Leaders Committee on Primary Health Cares (PHC), review meeting on Monday in Abuja.

Boyd, who was represented by the director of immunisation, for USCDC Nigeria, Dr Omotayo Bolu, stressed that Northern leaders have in the past showed that they wield some kind of influence to keep their communities and population safe.

She said Nigeria has witnessed some outbreaks which have seen these leaders take the front row by ensuring members of their communities were immunized.

She added that the leaders have gone as far as creating and delivering advocacy messages to mothers, caregivers and community members who in turn came out en-masse to have their children, friends and family members vaccinated.

According to Boyd: “There have been some many outbreaks and there are so many things we know our traditional leaders can help us do this time (COVID-19 pandemic); these include advocacy on handwashing, keeping the environment clean.

“If we encourage our mothers and caregivers to bring their children for immunisation, this will help us reduce the number of mortalities across our communities”.

“The traditional leaders have always made a difference, the immunisation expert said, “we have data that show the kind of influence you (the traditional leaders) have; the kind of influence we desire to keep everyone safe.

She also said, Nigeria has one of the highest numbers of children with CVDPV2 and also the highest number of unimmunized children globally.

The US R0epresentative further urged the traditional leaders to prevail on their subjects to bring their children for routine immunizations, adding that they have been successful in getting Nigeria out of wild poliovirus, so they could help to break the transmission.

While fielding questions from newsmen on the nature of the poliovirus, the Executive Director of National Primary Health Care Development Agency(NPHCDA) Faisal Shuaib, said there is a clear distinction from the wild poliovirus that has been eradicated in Nigeria and the whole Africa continent from the current outbreak of different types of poliovirus.

“This is a virus that exists where there is low routine immunization care, where women don’t take their kids for immunization shot against polio, measles and yellow fever-like our parents back then used to do.

“Where there is no full routine immunization and where there is poor water and sanitation then you begin derived to see that the virus is mutating just as you see in COVID-19 mutating the same thing applies to poliovirus.

“We would be able to mount outbreak responses to make sure that the tools that we are using will ensure that this outbreak stood. We are in control of the situation, hopefully, before the end of the rainy season, we will be able to carry out enough campaigns to make sure we are able to cover this.

“One other thing that is going to help us is that we don’t see this attack again is the increase in immunization coverage. Since 2016 were we recorded 33 per cent of routine immunization it has now increased to about 71 per cent and double the routine immunization coverage, we still have to get to about 90 per cent before we stop seeing these outbreaks of these diseases.

“We are not there yet, but the unprecedented increase in routine immunization coverage is going to help us. One thing that is clear is that globally there has never been such an increase in routine immunization coverage like we are seeing in Nigeria.

“We will continue to work with traditional rulers, they have been very instrumental in convincing their subjects to take their children for routine immunizations.

“The meeting is in how we can focus on different diseases and the root causes. We can not chase every disease like cholera, chase CVDPV2, chase Yellow fever, we have to look at the bottom line, this is because people don’t have good water and not observing environmental sanitation.

“The traditional rulers are working on how they could increase the knowledge of their subjects and how they can understand the link between poor water availability and poor environmental sanitation and the need to clear up their environments,” Shuaib explained.

It was earlier reported that UNICEF disclosed that 120 children have so far been infected in 2021 with environmental polio, while adding that, Nigeria account for 70 Percent of polio cases across the continent.

The agency added that Nigeria has a very good immunization infrastructure and is certain that the country would come out of the outbreak of environmental polio in no time.

It, however, stated that the outbreak is across the country and the government of Nigeria and their partners have responded exceptionally well.

According to it, 78 million vaccines had already been utilized throughout Nigeria and 50million more are expected in the next months to counter the outbreak.

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