Kano state government has attributed the low immunization coverage in the state to influx of people running away from some states in the Northwest that are suffering from security challenges.
The state’s Commissioner of Health, Dr. Abubakar Labaran Yusuf stated this at his opening remarks at the Cascade Capacity Building Training on Systems Thinking and Operational Planning, held in Kano on Wednesday.
BizPoint reports that the training was organised by the Kano State Ministry of Health, in partnership with Health Sector Renewal Investment Initiative and the Sector-Wide Approach (SWAp) to equip Monitoring and Evaluation Officers and Program Managers with the knowledge, tools, and skills necessary to actively contribute to the development of the 2026 Annual Operational Plan (AOP).
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According to him, people running away from states like Zamfara, Katsina and Sokoto are coming to Kano with unimmunized, drawing the state’s immunization drive back.
The Commissioner noted that available data has shown that over 2 million children in Nigeria are unimmunized.
According to him, “more than 70 or 80 percent of these unimmunized children are from Northern part of the country in which Northwest suffers more.
“If we talk about Norwest, when you spread this figure to places where there is insecurity and Kano that receives the influx of people running away from those areas, you may be able to deduce that the highest number may be in Kano or Katsina or other states,” Yusuf noted.
The commissioner however disclosed that the state Ministry of Health had noticed the influx of the unimmunized children and swing into action by embarking of Identification, Enumeration and Vaccination ( IEV) campaign.
Using the state’s created immunization taskforce, the Commissioner said the state government had constituted a committee which he co-chaired with the Deputy Governor, Comrade Aminu Abdulsalam to ensure that every child in Kano is immunized.
” The committee. The committee is tasked with the responsibility of ensuring that each and every child in Kano is immunized. We have gone down to the ward level because the district heads, ward heads and other traditional rulers are all part of this committee.
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“We have scheduled visits and activities to ensure that all these unimmunized children, especially those coming to Kano from other states have been identified, enumerated, and vaccinated.
“We are doing so in full force. We have also strengthened our routine immunization. We give our thanks to His Excellency governor Abba Kabir Yusuf for ensuring that our routine immunization is back.
“Before our coming, the sate had suffered neglect of routine immunization activity for which led outbreak of diphtheria, which for two years we are battling. But we have succeeded in containing the scourge but still, we are getting pockets for people with diphtheria, all because of the failure to present themselves for routine immunization.
“So, we have strengthened our humanization and i am calling on the public to ensure that all the children that have not been immunized or partially immunized are brought to centers for full immunization,” he appealed.
The Commissioner remarked that following the successful completion of the national-level Master Trainer Capacity Development Program, the training marks a significant step forward in decentralizing that knowledge and ensuring that the principles of systems thinking, health systems strengthening, strategic problem-solving, and evidence-based operational planning are fully internalized at the sub-national level.
He noted that the journey to achieving a resilient and responsive health system must begin with strategic thinking and data-driven planning.
” It is in this light that the Kano State Ministry of Health, in partnership with the SWAp Coordination Office, has organized this four-day intensive workshop.
“The goal is simple but critical: to equip our Monitoring and Evaluation Officers and Program Managers with the knowledge, tools, and skills necessary to actively contribute to the development of the 2026 Annual Operational Plan (AOP),” he said.
In her remarks, Esther Zitta, Head, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, FDD, Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, expressed support of the ministry to achieving the goals of the training.
According to Zitta, who is one of the National Facilitator to the training, the ministry of health always welcomes any programmed aimed at achieving good health plans in the country.
