The Sokoto State Government and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have intensified efforts to mobilise residents for a statewide polio vaccination exercise scheduled to hold from November 7 to 11.
The campaign will target children below five years, including those living in remote communities, internally displaced households, nomadic settlements and areas facing security challenges.
The Head of UNICEF Sokoto Field Office, Michael Juma, called on parents and caregivers to make their children available for the exercise, urging journalists to support public awareness efforts and tackle misconceptions surrounding vaccination.
He made the appeal on Friday at a media roundtable organised ahead of the campaign, where he highlighted the media’s influence in encouraging communities to embrace immunisation.
“The role of journalism or journalists is very important in capturing some of the happenings during the vaccination, but also influencing public opinion in terms of bringing children forward for vaccination,” he said.
Juma said UNICEF and its partners had implemented several community engagement activities across Sokoto, Zamfara and Kebbi states to strengthen participation in the polio eradication drive.
He noted that activities organised to commemorate the 2026 World Polio Day on October 24 included football matches involving youths and journalists, alongside para-soccer competitions featuring survivors of polio.
According to him, the initiatives were designed to promote inclusion, build resilience and encourage communities to take ownership of efforts to eradicate the disease.
He urged media practitioners to prioritise factual reporting and draw attention to children who had never received any vaccine, those missed during previous rounds and those living in hard-to-access locations.
The UNICEF official further stressed that supplementary vaccination campaigns should work alongside routine immunisation to protect children from other diseases preventable through vaccines.
He expressed optimism that the exercise would achieve full coverage across the state, saying, “We are looking forward to seeing a Sokoto State where parents would open their doors, vaccination teams would reach the last household and every single child would be vaccinated by the end of this campaign.”
Meanwhile, UNICEF’s Polio Coordinator in Nigeria, Asnakew Tsega, raised concerns about the continued spread of poliovirus in the country, revealing that between 68 and 69 children had developed paralysis from two circulating strains in 2026.
He said one of the strains accounted for between 46 and 47 cases, while the other was responsible for 21 cases.
Tsega explained that the confirmation of even one polio case was enough to trigger an outbreak response because of the virus’s high transmissibility and its capacity to cause severe disabilities in children.
“Polio is a paralytic disease. It is very infectious, it paralyses children and affects everyone. But it is a disease with a solution because we can prevent it through vaccination,” he said.
Although reported cases of polio-related paralysis had declined due to consistent immunisation efforts, he warned that the continued circulation of the virus made repeated vaccination essential.
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He appealed to parents not to turn away vaccination teams on the grounds that their children had previously received the vaccine, explaining that every child under five remained eligible for the November exercise.
“The solution is to vaccinate the children repeatedly because unless all the children have been reached repeatedly with the vaccines, the virus is going to continue and our children will be paralysed,” he said.
He added that vaccination workers would conduct house-to-house visits and reach children in markets, schools, streets and other public spaces to ensure wider coverage.
Tsega also assured residents that the vaccines would be administered at no cost, despite the substantial funding required from governments and international partners to make them available.
Addressing concerns about reaching populations affected by insecurity and displacement, Juma said the campaign had incorporated strategies to cover families relocating from rural settlements to urban areas for safety.
He explained that teams would conduct preliminary mapping to identify nomadic and displaced households, as well as track their movements to improve vaccination coverage.
According to him, vaccination records would be assessed daily to identify communities where eligible children were missed, allowing health workers to revisit such locations.
A vaccination official disclosed that additional measures had been introduced to access vulnerable communities and locations with difficult terrain, particularly in Isa, Gudu and Illela Local Government Areas.
The official said retired health workers and local healthcare personnel would assist the vaccination teams, while traditional institutions, religious leaders, community gatekeepers and selected vigilante groups would help persuade residents to participate.
Security agencies, he added, had also been incorporated into the state and local government task forces overseeing the exercise.
While acknowledging that insecurity might restrict access to certain communities, the official expressed confidence that regular reviews of vaccination data would enable authorities to identify gaps and adjust their strategies accordingly.
The officials maintained that achieving the campaign’s objectives would require joint efforts from the Sokoto State Government, UNICEF, the World Health Organisation, media organisations, community leaders and other development partners.
Other supporters of the polio eradication initiative include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the United States Government, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, Rotary International, The Rotary Foundation, Solina Centre for International Development and Research, the African Field Epidemiology Network, the United States Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the Dangote Foundation.
They appealed to parents and caregivers to welcome vaccination workers and ensure that every child below five receives the vaccine, irrespective of previous doses, residence or personal circumstances.
Polio is a highly contagious viral infection that attacks the nervous system and can result in permanent paralysis, especially among children.
Immunisation remains the most effective protection against the disease, while repeated vaccination campaigns help address immunity gaps and protect children who may have been excluded from earlier exercises.