The Sokoto State Government and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have called on parents and caregivers to present children below five years for vaccination during the November 7 to 11 polio immunisation campaign.
The government and its development partners said the exercise would target all eligible children, particularly those in hard-to-reach communities, internally displaced households, nomadic settlements and areas affected by insecurity.
The Head of UNICEF Sokoto Field Office, Mr Michael Juma, made the appeal on Friday during a media roundtable organised ahead of the campaign, urging journalists to help address misconceptions about vaccination and encourage public participation.
Juma described the media as a critical partner in the fight against polio, saying journalists had an important responsibility to influence public attitudes and encourage parents to make their children available for 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.
He disclosed that UNICEF and its partners had conducted several activities across Sokoto, Zamfara and Kebbi states to strengthen community participation and ownership of the polio eradication programme.
According to him, activities marking the 2026 World Polio Day on October 24 included football matches involving young people and journalists, as well as para-soccer competitions featuring polio survivors.
He said the activities were designed to promote inclusion, resilience and community involvement in efforts to eradicate the disease.
Juma urged journalists to focus their reports on the need to reach zero-dose children, those missed during previous vaccination rounds and children in remote communities.
He also emphasised the importance of integrating polio campaigns with routine immunisation to protect children against other vaccine-preventable diseases.
“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,” he said.
Also speaking, UNICEF Polio Coordinator in Nigeria, Asnakew Tsega, expressed concern over the continued transmission of poliovirus in the country, revealing that between 68 and 69 children had suffered paralysis from two circulating poliovirus strains in 2026.
He explained that between 46 and 47 cases were linked to one strain, while another 21 cases were attributed to the second strain.
Tsega warned that even a single confirmed polio case was enough to constitute an outbreak, given the highly infectious nature of the disease and its potentially devastating consequences.
“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.
He attributed the reduction in visible cases of polio-induced paralysis to sustained immunisation campaigns but warned that continued transmission made repeated vaccination necessary.
The UNICEF official appealed to parents not to reject additional vaccine doses for children who had previously been immunised, insisting that every child below five years must receive the vaccine during the campaign.
“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.
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He added that vaccination teams would conduct house-to-house visits and extend the exercise to markets, streets, schools and other public places to ensure that no eligible child was left out.
He assured parents that the vaccines would be administered free of charge, despite the huge financial resources required from governments and development partners to procure and distribute them.
On the challenge of reaching children in insecure and displacement-affected communities, Juma said special arrangements had been made to accommodate mobile populations, including families moving between rural settlements and urban centres in search of safety.
He explained that pre-campaign mapping would help identify the locations and movement patterns of nomadic and displaced families, while daily monitoring of vaccination data would guide teams in identifying and revisiting settlements where children might have been missed.
A vaccination official said additional strategies had also been developed to reach security-compromised and hard-to-reach communities, particularly in Isa, Gudu and Illela local government areas.
He disclosed that retired health workers and local health personnel would support vaccination teams, while traditional rulers, religious leaders, community gatekeepers and selected vigilante groups would assist in mobilising residents.
According to him, security agencies were also represented in the state and local government task forces coordinating the exercise.
Although he acknowledged that insecurity could hinder access to some communities, he expressed optimism that daily reviews of vaccination data would help teams adjust their operations and reach missed settlements.
The officials stressed that achieving the objectives of the campaign would require sustained cooperation among the state government, UNICEF, the World Health Organisation (WHO), journalists, traditional institutions, religious leaders and other development partners.
Other organisations supporting the polio eradication programme include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the United States Government, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, Rotary International, The Rotary Foundation, the Solina Centre for International Development and Research (SCIDaR), the African Field Epidemiology Network (AFENET), the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Dangote Foundation.
The partners urged parents and caregivers to cooperate with vaccination teams, stressing that every child below five years must receive the polio vaccine, regardless of previous doses, location or circumstances.
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