20th June, 2020
By Abujah Racheal/Abuja
Nigerians should not beat the drum yet for being declared a polio-free country.
Dr Faisal Shuaib, executive director of National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) said the country is still at risk of another Polio epidemic.
Nigeria would be formally certified polio free in August.
Shuaib gave the warning on Friday at a Zoom meeting, with some donor partners and stakeholders in Abuja.
The meeting was meant to celebrate the new status.
Shuaib, however, assured Nigerians that vaccination would be intensified to avert a resurgence.
The African Regional Commission for Certification of Polio Eradication (ARCC), an organ of World Health Organisation (WHO), accepted Nigeria’s Wild Polio Virus Free Documentation after 30 years, on June 18.
Shuaib said though, the certification meant that there was no wild polio virus anywhere in Nigeria, it did not mean the work was over.
According to him, the virus can still be imported from other endemic countries.
”This means we have to continue to give our kids the vaccination that they need against the virus, and all the other vaccine preventable diseases.
”We should not forget that we still have Afghanistan and Pakistan that are endemic for wild polio viruses, which means there is still a potential that this virus may be imported into Nigeria.
“We live in a global village, you can see how COVID-19 spread so fast from China. By the same token, we could have wild polio virus spread from these two endemic countries,” he said.
Shuaib said though donor partners would withdraw funding, Nigeria has enough to sustain ongoing vaccination across the country, including hard to reach communities.
He said government was gradually taking responsibility for health.
“In 2015, we had 40 per cent routine immunisation but, in 2018, it increased to 57 per cent, we are at 67 per cent now,” he said.
The executive secretary said that the certification would take place from Aug. 24 to Aug. 28, when a formal certificate would be awarded to the President.
Earlier, Dr Osagie Ehanire, the Minister of Health, said the declaration of Nigeria as polio free did not mean the work had finished as the country was being threatened by COVID-19.
Ehanire said that all stakeholders involved in the eradication of polio would not rest until Coronavirus was defeated.
“We face a new enemy. There is the Coronavirus out there.
“After we defeated the polio virus, there is no time for rest.