The Health Education Unit under the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare recently held a daylong sensitisation on polio for Central River Region Technical Advisory Committee members, district chiefs and women's bureau councillors.
Speaking at the ceremony, the Deputy Governor of CRR, Momodou Ida Bah stated that providing health services to every Gambian is part of President Jammeh’s top priorities. Noting that health is wealth, he said no nation can have any meaningful development in the absence of health.
He underscored the importance of the polio campaigns, adding that it helps in the fight against polio for children from 0-5 years.
Mr. Bah then urged the chiefs and councillors to spread the gospel and for them (the communities) to cooperate during polio campaigns.
For his part, the acting Programme Manager at the Health Education Unit, Mr. Yerro Bah spoke at length on the importance of polio campaigns, adding that polio is a disease caused by a germ, which kills or cripples children.
"Polio is not caused by a devil or 'Satan', but it is caused by drinking/eating contaminated food," he added. Mr. Ousman Badjie, the Senior Programme Officer under the Expanded Programme of Immunisation (EPI) said national immunisation days are set aside to immunise all children from the age of 0-5 years in The Gambia against polio.
According to him, this year an estimated 381,134 children will be vaccinated during the campaign country wide. He stated that the ultimate aim of the campaign is to kick polio out of the country so that the huge amounts of money spent on the campaign by the government and its partners could be diverted to other development agendas.
Mr. Alpha Mballow, National Nutrition Agency (NaNA) regional field officer for CRR urged parents and guardians to cooperate fully during polio campaigns to enable their children (0-5yrs) to be vaccinated.
The sensitisation was chaired by Jaligeh Nget, the CRR Regional Health Officer.
