An outbreak of three cases of Circulating Variant Poliovirus has again been confirmed in Kano, putting children under the age of five years vulnerable to the dangerous disease.

Circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus (cVDPV) can cause paralysis and spread from person to person. Although the form of the virus is rare, it can cause outbreaks, particularly in areas with low vaccination rates.

The fresh cases were recorded three months after eight cases of polio were reported in Kano.

Chief of the UNICEF Kano Field Office, Rahama Rihood Mohamed Farah, disclosed this on Tuesday during a media dialogue on Child-Sensitive Budgeting in Kano.

The UNICEF chief worried that despite the efforts of the government to improve the living standard of children, available data indicated a deplorable state in which children live in Kano.

According to him, multi-dimensional data indicates that 143,000 children under five die each year before reaching their fifth birthday in Kano from various diseases.

Referring to data on roughly 6.5 million children, Mr. Farah emphasised that around 2.9 million are not fully immunised. He highlighted that these figures starkly remind us of the urgent need to enhance child survival efforts in Kano.

Besides the alarming figures, the UNICEF boss was worried about government underfunding and the declining allocation of resources to social sectors, including health, education, and social welfare, despite increasing demands.

He lamented the invisibility gap in state budgeting, where children’s needs are often embedded in larger sectors and there are insufficient provisions for critical areas such as nutrition, early childhood development, and child protection.

“To address these, UNICEF calls for action, urging the government to mandate child-sensitive budgeting across all MDAs in the MTEF submissions and annual budgets. Make child budgeting a standard agenda item.

“Champion increased and protected allocations for high-impact child survival, development, and protection programs. Demand transparent, regular reporting on child expenditures and their impact.

“We appealed to the Media to report regularly on child wellbeing, budget allocations, and service delivery gaps. Translate complex budget data into compelling stories that the public understands, provide a platform for discussions, and dialogue involving government, CSOs, communities, and children,” Farah said.