Kuni Tyessi in Abuja
The federal government has debunked the rumour of a suspected case of polio in a remote community in Odukpani Local Government Area (LGA) of Cross River State.
The child who was suspected to have been infected, a two-year-old male, had been served with six doses of Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) in his course of life.
The child is however said to have a history of deformity which was observed at birth for which he was attended to by a local bone healer at the age of three weeks.
The acting Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr. Emmanuel Odu, who announced this yesterday in Abuja, said physical assessment and examination revealed that the sign that suggest complications of polio virus infection were not present in the child whose legs were not flaccid, loose or weak.
He said disease surveillance and notification officers in all LGAs work daily and are positioned to reach any community in every LGA throughout the country, to detect any child that presents signs suggestive of polio paralysis which are fever, weakness of flaccid paralysis of a limb or limbs.
He urged individuals and families to continue to contribute to the survival and development of every Nigerian child by presenting them for vaccination, promptly utilising available PHC services and reporting any case of a child with fever and sudden weakness or paralysis of limbs.
“A leg or muscles paralysed by polio would be loose, very weak, flabby or soft. These were not found in the child. Rather, a clubfoot of the right leg was found. It is known in medical circles as tilapes (varus), a condition in which one or both feet are twisted into an abnormal position, usually at birth.”
“Stool samples of any affected child are collected for lab examination, of which result will be available in two weeks of stool sample submission. The result will confirm if such paralysis was caused by polio or not. In the particular case under reference, in Cross River state, it does not even qualify for sample collection. It is not a case of polio. There is no paralysis.”
It will be recalled that 2008, Nigeria recorded the case of 798 children with polio and with federal government intervention, the number has continued to drastically reduce for good. In 2015, no case was recorded until in August 2016 when four cases were documented.
