The National Primary Health Care Development Agency on Sunday says it has reduced the scourge of Polio Virus by 60 per cent this year compared to 2012.
The Executive Director of the agency, Dr Ado Muhammad disclosed this in Abuja in a paper presented at the University of Ilorin Alumni Association, Abuja chapter annual re-union lecture.
Muhammad, in his paper titled, “Primary Health Care Delivery to Nigerians: A concern for all’’ admitted that there were persistent challenges in a few states and security compromised areas.
He said that with the administrative data available to the agency within the year, more than 80 per cent of all eligible Nigerian children have successfully been immunised.
“We have mobilised over 10, 000 members of staffs across the 1, 500 PHCs in various communities to ensure a reduction in maternal, new born, and child morbidity and mortality.
“We have aligned ourselves with the global campaign to mobilise one million community health workers.
“The NPHCDA in collaboration with the MDG office and SURE-P have recruited, trained and deployed over 5, 000 village health workers.
“Their duties primarily will be to serve as foot soldiers in the community and bridge the gap between the families and PHC facility,’’ he said.
Muhammad said that evidence had shown that over 70 per cent of the disease burdens were conditions that could be tackled at the PHC level.
He therefore suggested that to make Nigerians healthy, the PHC system must be made to function effectively.
He listed the persisting challenges confronting the implementation to include ineffective coordination and managerial structure, inadequate funding, poor physical infrastructure and equipment and shortage of human resources for health.
Others, according to him, are frequent stock-out of drugs and health commodities and virtual absence of system of logistics for effective distribution of commodities.
The NPHCDA boss thanked President Goodluck Jonathan for his commitment and done his utmost best to ensure the availability of much needed resources particularly for immunisation. (NAN)
