500 personnel of the Zonal and Bauchi State Sector Command of Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) have been vaccinated against Yellow fever which is rampaging as a killer disease at the moment.
This development is following the recent outbreak of the disease in Bauchi State which has so far led to the death of over 15 people mostly from two LGAs of Alkaleri and Tafawa-Balewa.
The vaccination exercise was carried out by the Bauchi State Primary Health Care Development Agency (BSPHCDA), on the FRSC Zonal and Bauchi State Sector Command officials on Monday in the state.
While speaking in an interview with our Correspondent shortly after he was vaccinated, the Zonal Commander, of FRSC, Assistant Corps Marshall, Imoh Etuk, commended the Bauchi State Ministry of Health for the gesture and noted that it will go a long way in protecting men of the Corps from being infected with the killer disease.
He said: “These vaccines were donated by the Bauchi State Ministry of Health so that our people are properly immunized against yellow fever. We cannot do this end of the year patrol without us being sound and fit, so if there is an outbreak of yellow fever, you can be sure that it will affect our staff. And therefore, there would be a traffic upsurge and people will not be able to ensure that they do the needful”.
Imoh Etuk added that “We are very grateful to the Bauchi State Ministry of Health for this gesture of ensuring that our people are properly vaccinated and it is only a healthy body that can do a proper work*.
“We are expecting a total of 500 staff to be properly vaccinated, after this, we will also extend it to their families and we are really grateful to the Ministry for this,” he added.
Imoh Etuk used the opportunity to call on all motorists to obey traffic rules, especially during the ’ember’ months in order to stay alive.
He also advised motorists to ensure that they service their vehicles properly and also do proper journey management saying, “because road safety is a state of the mind. If your mind is not properly structured to receive messages, that’s also a problem.”
The Zonal Corps Marshal added: “Most importantly, they should not travel by night because most of the crashes that happen are during that time of the day. Since people have the fundamental human right to travel anytime, we are advising, we are not enforcing, that they should plan their journeys and avoid traveling at night.”
Also speaking, a staff of the BSPHCDA who was the team leader, Maryam Dauda, said that the vaccination is necessary because of the casualties recorded in the state saying, “This vaccination is to protect them against the yellow fever disease since we have the outbreak in Bauchi” .
“This vaccination is necessary because it kills human beings and we have recorded so many deaths, so we are here to protect them do that we will not have an outbreak within the Road Safety because during their work, they interact with people and because of this, vaccinating them is very important,” she further said.