Sokoto to scale up polio vaccination in border communities with Niger Republic

The Sokoto state government has unveiled plans to scale up vaccination against polio and other vaccine-preventable diseases in six local government areas bordering the Niger Republic, as part of efforts to curb cross-border transmission of the virus.

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The State Immunisation Officer (SIO), Bashar Garba, disclosed this in an interview with PREMIUM TIMES, noting that the initiative will focus on strengthening routine immunisation and reaching children who cross international borders.

Mr Garba said one of the programmes, supported by the Solina Centre for International Development and Research (SCIDaR), would deploy intensification teams across the LGAs to prevent children from leaving or coming into Nigeria with the polio virus.

“We will be carrying routine immunisation vaccines, including polio, so that each and every child living in those borders is being protected,” he said.

“Any child that is crossing is going to be vaccinated so that they cannot go out with the virus in Niger or come in with the virus to Nigeria.”

Mr Garba said the state had begun intensifying routine immunisation (RI) since late 2025, but plans to scale it up better this year.

He said the state is also prepared to implement a higher-quality polio campaign that reaches every eligible child and is accepted by everyone.

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“Our priority for 2026, for the Ministry of Health, as well as the primary health care, is to see how we can scale up our routine immunisation coverage and even interrupt the transmission of this polio, the circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2),” he said.

Other plans

Mr Garba, who leads immunisation exercises in the state, explained that the state’s strategy this year is to identify eligible children, enumerate and vaccinate them.

He said the plan is to ensure that the vaccination records of all children are recorded and assigned tracking numbers to monitor the completion of their doses.

He added that the enumeration will begin on Saturday, 14 February, and would run for six days.

After the conclusion of the enumeration, he said vaccination will begin in March.

“On 7 March, during Ramadan, when a lot of children will be at home, we’ll go there and vaccinate those children,” he added.

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He also said the state plans to boost routine immunisation with injectable Inactivated Polio Vaccines (IPV), every quarter or biannually.

“(The IPV) is a very strong vaccine that can prevent you from all types of polio virus, because polio has a lot of types. There’s type one, two, three, and four. That one can prevent a child from all types of polio virus. So we want to use it at least, even if it is once a year, because it’s a very expensive campaign. It requires a lot of resources,” he said.

Sokoto’s resurged Polio cases

Sokoto is currently battling the resurgence of a circulating Vaccine-Derived Poliovirus Type 2 (cVDPV2). The cVDPV2 is a strain of poliovirus that has mutated from the live-attenuated virus used in the Oral Poliovirus Vaccine (OPV), causing paralysis in under-immunised populations.

It has caused more polio cases annually than wild poliovirus since 2017, according to the WHO.

Although Nigeria was declared wild polio-free in 2020, outbreaks of vaccine-derived poliovirus have persisted in some states, including Sokoto, due to low routine immunisation coverage, population movement and vaccine hesitancy.

Last year, Sokoto recorded 20 cases of cVDPV2, Mr Garba said.