Polio Plateau has no reported case of disease since 2009, says commissioner

The commissioner said that the state was proactive by ensuring that its vaccines were well preserved.

Dr Kuden Kamshak, the Plateau State Commissioner for Health, on Monday said the state had not recorded any case of polio since 2009.

Kunden disclosed this to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Jos.

He said that the government would continue to maintain the trend by ensuring that all children were immunised with oral-polio vaccines.

The commissioner said that the state was proactive by ensuring that its vaccines were well preserved, adding that the 17 local government areas had refrigerators that were solar powered.

Kunden said this would go a long way in bridging the public electricity supply gap in the area and in areas without public electricity.

He said that vaccines would lose their potency if they were not well preserved.

The commissioner said that vaccines needed to be kept or stored under cold temperature of plus one to plus eight for them to maintain their potency.

“Many a time, vaccines that have lost their potency are administered to infants, but the aim of giving such vaccines is already defeated,” he said.

Kunden said that although vaccines might be well preserved, but they might lose their potency if they were not well kept in the cold room during administration.

“These vaccines should be kept in coolers when conveyed for administration as the icepacks in the coolers can help ensure that the vaccines are potent for 16 hours in the coolers when the vaccines are outside the cold room or refrigerators.

“If vaccines do not get to the child in their potent stage, it is as good as if the vaccine wasn’t administered as the aim of such immunisation is defeated because the vaccine has lost its efficacy,” he said.

Kunden said that the administration of impotent vaccines was often responsible for vaccine failure in children.

The commissioner said that it was possible that children immunised against certain diseases could end up with such diseases because it is possible they were given impotent vaccines.