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The Country Representatives of the United Nations’ Children Fund (UNICEF) in Nigeria, Jean Gough, has called on state Governments to hasten the domestication of the Child Rights Act.
Speaking yesterday during a visit on the Gombe State Governor, Alhaji Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo, he said doing so would afford the Child adequate protection.
She further charged the Gombe State government to establish a task force on routine immunization especially on polio.
According to her, this was because Nigeria was one of the three countries in the world where polio was yet to be eradicated.
She expressed concern over delay in the payment of counterpart fund by some state governments just as she called for commitment in that direction so that its programmes would not be stalled.
She said she was rightly overwhelmed by the massive transformation being undertaken by Dankwambo in the last two years of the administration.
Speaking through his Deputy, Mr. Tha’anda Jason Rubainu, the Governor stated that his administration had always taken issues that affect children very seriously which was a reason the state had remained Guinea warm free in the last three years.
He said records have also shown that the PMTCT programme in the state has been rated best in the North East Geo-political zone and also in the whole country.
The Governor explained that the state had over 100 PMTCT sites and had counselled over 60, 000 and tested over 50, 000 women. Those who were found positive have been registered and were receiving antiretroviral drugs regularly.
He said the Government trained 1, 425 health workers from the state’s health facilities on various prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV/AIDS (PMTCT) activities.
“Last year, Government purchased over 150 test kits of Determine, Unigold, start-park, hand-gloves and drugs and distributed same among PMTCT sites”, he said.
The Governor explained that antenatal drugs have been distributed to all health centres across the 11 LGA’s in the state along with supplies received from UNICEF worth millions of naira.
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