Nigeria Hits Major Milestone in Fight Against Polio

After concerted efforts and immunization drives, Nigeria has not reported any new cases since July a year ago, the World Health Organization said Friday.

Nigeria’s success leaves just two countries-Pakistan and Afghanistan-where transmission of wild poliovirus, the cause of most cases of polio, has never been stopped. Once Nigeria has gone three years without reporting a case of the virus, the country can be declared polio-free.

On 12 August, Africa marked one year since the last recorded case of polio – in Somalia – raising hopes of its elimination across the continent. More than 200000 volunteers across the country repeatedly immunized more than 45 million children under the age of five years to ensure that no child would suffer from this paralysing disease.

As recently as 2012 Nigeria accounted for more than half of all polio cases worldwide.

“We need to continue the efforts at every level if polio is to be eradicated”.

Polio is a paralyzing illness that can be spread by poor sanitation and usually affects children.

Although polio is close to being eradicated throughout the world, it still remains endemic in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Since 1988 the incidence of polio has been reduced by more than 99 percent. Change in leadership and aggressive door-to-door vaccination sessions made it all happen, but of course, unless we eradicate the disease entirely, it can always have a chance to infect. “If you provide a gap, polio will take advantage of it.” explained Michael Galway head of the Gates Foundation’s polio effort. The eradication of polio globally now depends primarily on stopping the disease in these countries.

The president of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Chris Elias, hailed the achievement in Nigeria as a milestone but said the accomplishment “is also fragile”. More than 2.5 children were already vaccinated through the efforts of 20 million volunteers backed up by $9 billion in funding since 1988.