The Federal Government yesterday in Abuja, said the nonchallant attitude of state governors and chairmen of the 774 local governments to national response programme on mitigation of polio, is the key factor for the 100 per cent increase in its virus.
Minister for Health, Professor Eyitayo Lambo, said this yesterday at the National Dialogue on Revitalising Immunisation in Nigeria.
According to Lambo, despite the Federal Government's commitment to the mitigation of the child-killer disease, leading to the commitment of billions of naira, state governors have failed to complement efforts made at the national level.
He said governors have the responsibilty of ensuring that vaccines procured by the Federal Government get to target audience at the state and local government level, but expressed regret that most governors and local government chiefs frustrate the commitment to tackle the scourge.
According to him, it is the duty of state governors and council heads to provide effective cold chain system for the preservation of vaccines, since immunisation is a component of primary health care delivery, and expressed regret that state governors after receiving federal allocations, willfully ignore budgets for immunisation.
He said the Federal Government cannot legislate for the states on how much they should budget for immunisation programme, and wondered why they continue to starve the all important campaign of funds.
Meanwhile, the Interim Chief Executive of the Natioanl Programme on Immunisa-tion(NPI), Dr Edogie Abebe, has called on the Federal Government to as a matter of urgency, consider ceding procurement of polio vaccines to NPI, rather than leaving it to development partners.
According to her, this prerogative will enable the NPI monitor the potency of all vacines brought into the country, adding that the old practice of merely paying for the vaccines and leaving its importation to development partners was responsible for most of the problems.
She said government can only achieve meaningful polio interruption when the national health act is promulgated, to streamline functions of the Federal Government, states and local government in the scheme of immunisation programme.
Abebe listed barriers such as lack of infrastructure, poor storage system among others, as militating against interuption of the wild polio scourge.
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