Good News: See How Nigeria Is Faring In The Fight Against Polio
Recall that in 2012, the WHO announced that Nigeria accounted for more than half of the total number of polio cases recorded across the world.
In a welcome development, however, Nigeria now stands a chance of being declared polio-free by the World Health Organisation, having spent three years without a single case of polio.
According to www.bbc.com, the head of the Primary Health Care Agency, Dr. Faisal Shuaib, said Nigeria had reached a historic milestone, but that it would take some months more before the country can officially be labeled polio-free.
The chairman of Nigeria’s Polio Committee, Dr. Tunji Funsho, in an interview on BBC Newsday said WHO would have to set up a robust surveillance system in Nigeria to be certain that there would be no more cases of the wild poliovirus in the country.
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According to the BBC, Nigeria is the last country in Africa to have witnessed a case of polio in Borno State, while the last case on the continent was in the Puntland region of Somalia, in 2014. WHO’s Head of Polio Eradication, Michel Zaffran, voiced out a renewed call to vaccinate children against polio, stressing that vaccination would go a long way in ending polio in Nigeria.
He said,
“To end polio, 95 percent of children, at least, must be vaccinated, no matter where they live.”
In 2018, a total of 33 cases of polio were confined to just two countries -Afghanistan and Pakistan.