If parents stop getting their children vaccinated against polio, the paralysing and sometimes deadly virus could resurface.

That was the main message coming from a three-day media dialogue held this week in Yola in Adamawa State.

The dialogue – Routine immunisation; Post-polio certification and COVID-19 vaccination – was organised by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in conjunction with the Child Rights Information Bureau of the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture.

Doctor Amina Ibrahim Nanabe from the New GRA Maiduguri Clinic told RNI that parents must continue getting their children vaccinated against the polio virus.

She said polio had been a major problem in the country for years but Nigeria and the rest of Africa were formally certified free of the Wild Polio Virus on August 25 last year by the World Health Organisation after no cases of the virus had been detected on the continent for three years.

Nigeria was the last country in Africa to eliminate the virus.

Polio, which usually affects children under five, can lead to irreversible paralysis by attacking the nervous system. It is spread from person to person mostly through contaminated water.

Death can occur when the virus attacks the breathing muscles.

There is no cure but the polio vaccine protects children for life.

Nanabe said women needed to convince their husbands that it was imperative for their children to be vaccinated.

“The importance of the polio vaccine cannot be overemphasised,” she said, adding that it was a child’s right to be inoculated against the virus.

The Premium Times reported on Wednesday that UNICEF had warned that the Wild Polio Virus could resurface in the country if preventive workable measures were not taken.

It quoted Elizabeth Onitolo, UNICEF’s specialist on communication for development, as saying that the recorded success was still fragile due to low immunisation, which had been worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Onitolo said many parents and guardians were still sceptical about vaccinating children, mostly because of misinformation.

The emergence of the COVID-19 virus had negatively affected routine immunisation which could put many children at risk of preventable diseases.

“Many parents are not compliant, children are not vaccinated and environmental sanitation and personal hygiene in communities are still low, providing a possible ground for a polio outbreak,” she told Premium Times.

Vaccine hesitancy was also frustrating efforts to fight the COVID-19 virus, which had infected more than 160,000 people in the country.