Eradicating Polio and Strengthening Primary Health Care in Northern Nigeria

The project aims to improve people’s health by rapidly increasing polio immunity and the availability of basic maternal newborn and child health services in 2 500 hard-to-reach settlements in Jigawa Niger Zamfara and Taraba states in northern Nigeria. The project seeks to hire train supervise and monitor 50 mobile health teams (with 250 health workers) to procure and deliver polio vaccines. This is expected to strengthen rural health systems and support active surveillance of polio and other diseases. The mobile health teams also provide other health interventions to boost overall health address urgent health needs and help increase the acceptance of polio vaccination. These include: (1) providing vitamin A and multivitamins to address malnutrition in women and children; (2) providing treatment for pneumonia diarrhea malaria and other vaccines against preventable diseases; (3) providing preventive health services for pregnant women such as iron folate; and (4) providing health education on issues such as safe water and sanitation management the benefits of exclusive breast-feeding nutrition and maternal health. Project activities include: (1) immunizing children (0-59 months of age) against polio; (2) identifying priority target populations requiring polio immunization including detailed health team plans commodities logistics requirements and a mobile outreach schedule; (3) preparing and producing protocols training materials and health education materials for outreach teams and populations; (4) conducting community engagement activities to educate people on important health issues; and (5) demonstrating the effectiveness of the mobile outreach approach as a strategy to access hard-to-reach vulnerable populations to national state and local governments for future government-supported scale-up by documenting performance challenges lessons learned and value for money. These activities will contribute to the ultimate outcome now within reach of

The expected intermediate outcomes for this project include: (1) improved immunity to polio among children aged 0 to 59 months and coverage of basic maternal newborn and child health services; (2) improved availability of basic and life-saving primary health care commodities reaching approximately one million people; and (3) increased knowledge by governments and partners of the costs and benefits of integrated mobile outreach programming as a model for future investment in primary health care.