Assessment of Awareness, Beliefs and Attitude of Mothers Towards Oral Polio Vaccine Immunization in Gwange Ward II, Maiduguri Metropolitan Council

A research study conducted on mothers’ attitude towards Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) Immunization in Gwange ward II area of Maiduguri Metropolitan Council, Borno State. This study came up out of the persisted upsurge of polio infection in Borno state and Gwange ward in particular after implementation of strategies outlined by the WHO for stopping transmission failed to yield a positive result in this ward and other wards of Northern Nigeria. Mothers or care takers attitude, belief and perception to polio immunization are some of the factors bringing a setback to polio infection eradication that is targeted for extinction throughout the world. Continuous researching, implementation of research findings and sincerity of purpose by government and other stakeholders are some of the powerful weapons that need to be empowered for the eradication of polio in Nigeria and world in general. Since poliovirus is only transmitted through person-to-person contact and the transmission cycle of polio is from one infected person to another person susceptible to the disease, and so on. If the vast majority of the ability of that pathogen to infect another host is reduce; the cycle of transmission is interrupted, and the pathogen cannot reproduce and dies out. This concept called community immunity or hard immunity is important to disease eradiation because if the number of susceptible individuals can be reduced to a small number through vaccination the pathogen itself can be eliminated (poliovirus extinction).