Non-compliance poses setback to effective polio immunisation in Katsina – Official

Non-compliance coupling with misinformation have been identified as a setback hampering successful conduct of polio immunisation exercises in Katsina State.

Shamsudeen Yahaya, Executive Secretary, Katsina State Primary Health Care Agency (SPHCA), made this known during a mass mobilisation dialogue with journalists and other stakeholders in the state on Wednesday.

Yayaha said the problem was encountered during polio vaccination exercise in March this year across the state.

He also identified other challenges to include missed children due to absence or poor follow-up systems, gaps in data reporting and real-time tracking, and the need for stronger community engagement and localised messages.

Despite these challenges however, he said the State was able to immunise a total of 2,954,362 children out of a projected three million children, against polio in March this year.

He said children immunised were between 0-59 months, and that the state has commenced activities for polio vaccination for April this year.

For the April campaign, Yahaya said “3,761 house-to-house teams, including 993 special teams, and 361 fixed-post teams would be deployed across the state”, adding that over 3.3 million doses of the novel oral polio vaccine (nOPV2) have been secured and distributed to the council areas.

He outlined strategies to improve performance, including community engagement initiatives such as mobile awareness campaigns, radio programmes, stakeholder sensitisation, and targeted messaging in high-risk areas.

Yahaya emphasised the critical role of the media in combating misinformation and building public trust in vaccines.

According to him, “We operate in a fast-paced information environment where misinformation spreads quickly. Your role in amplifying accurate and culturally appropriate messages is vital to the success of this campaign,” he said.

Dr. Suleiman Haladu, the Chief Lead, CDC AfENET and Deputy Incident Manager at the Polio Emergency Operations Centre, earlier said the state’s last recorded cases of the virus was in 2025 in Danmusa local government area where two infections were confirmed within two months.

Haladu said since then, the state has gone nearly five months without a single case of the virus, marking a major milestone in the Polio Eradication Initiative.

He attributed this to strong leadership, effective collaboration among stakeholders, and the support of frontline workers, including journalists, social media influencers, U-Reporters and members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).

“Your contributions as media professionals and community mobilisers have been critical in reducing vaccine hesitancy and ensuring wider acceptance of immunisation,” Haladu said.

He noted that during the March 2026 Supplemental National Immunisation Days (SNID) campaign, the state achieved over 95% coverage, vaccinating nearly 2.9 million children aged 0–59 months with oral polio vaccines.

Despite the success, Haladu highlighted ongoing challenges such as pockets of non-compliance, hard-to-reach communities, and insecurity in some areas, which continue to hinder full coverage.

He warned that the state remains at risk of virus importation from neighbouring states like Zamfara and Sokoto, where active transmission persists, stressing the need to sustain high population immunity.

“It takes just one infected individual crossing into the state to trigger a new outbreak, especially in vulnerable communities with low immunisation coverage,” he said.