…As Bill Gate beams focus on Nigeria’s status
The nation’s status as one of the only four countries globally where the transmission of wild polio virus subsists, has over the years been a source of concern, not only to public health experts in the country, but to various international donor communities.
Only recently, Nigeria’s polio story took the centre stage at New York in the United States of America. This time, it wasn’t about the country’s failure to do something right, or how the rest of the world was leaving the country behind in its fight against the dreaded childhood killer disease; instead, it was to celebrate the remarkable achievement made by Nigeria as it strives to eradicate polio from circulating within its borders in 2011.
The event was the presentation of the 2011 Annual Lecture, entitled: "Polio Eradication, the power of vaccines: The Nigerian and Indian example" in New York, by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; a foundation which has devoted its resources towards combating polio.
Gates’ decision to bring Nigeria to the centre stage at the event beamed live via satellites and watched by millions of people across the globe, was his way of showing how impressed he was with Nigeria and the commitment of the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHCDA), towards ensuring that polio joins small pox as another “once upon a time” affliction of the human kind.
Addressing newsmen in Lagos, Muhammad Ali Pate, executive director, NPHCDA, hinted that 50 million children between the age of zero and five years were reached with polio vaccination during the Integrated Measles and Polio Campaign; and 31 million children aged from nine to 59 months for measles. Pate noted that among the four endemic countries that haven’t been able to stop the transmission of the wild polio virus, Nigeria hasn’t reported any polio case in 2011.
“We have increased coverage for polio and routine immunisation by 70 to 90 percent and 50 percent, respectively. Nigeria can win the fight against childhood killer diseases as many other countries have done. We have the tools and the know-how. Combined with political will and leadership, Nigerian children can claim their right to grow up healthy," Pate said.
Speaking on the efficacy of vaccines in eradicating polio, he explained that “due to the global childhood immunisation campaign, polio has been reduced to 99 percent and is on the threshold of becoming only the second disease ever eradicated.”
Lending his view, Aminu Magashi, a public health expert, disclosed that polio eradication is one public health initiative in Nigeria that almost everybody knows about due to its wide coverage, repeated national and state immunisation days as well as the controversy it generated in the past.
Magashi stated that at the Expert Review Committee (ERC) on Polio Eradication in Nigeria which held from the 4th to 5th October 2010, “the meeting observed some risks to completing the eradication, such as, those states that recorded wild polio virus in 2010; Borno (only proven WPV1 residual reservoir) and Kano & North West states (highest burden of WPV3).”
Explaining the disease, Magashi explained that poliomyelitis (polio) is a highly infectious viral disease, which mainly affects young children and is transmitted through contaminated food and water. He revealed that the virus multiplies in the intestine, from where it can invade the nervous system. The medical expert added that many infected people have no symptoms, but do excrete the virus in their faeces, hence, transmitting infection to others.
Taking a look at statistics, in 2009, there were 388 polio cases in the country. But by 2010, the number reduced to just 21(that is, 95 percent reduction). Going further, only two years ago, the World Health Assembly passed a resolution condemning Nigeria for its poor response to the polio threat despite the fact that the country was among the few in which new outbreaks of the disease was still being recorded.
While Nigeria’s fight against polio is aided by the momentum and exceptional attention from the international community such as the Rotary International, which has raised millions of dollars for polio vaccines and visionary partners, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, UNICEF and the World Health Organisation, there is the need for national funding to enable the payment for vaccines, logistics, surveillance and community mobilisation required to reach every Nigerian child under five.
In Pate’s estimation, “In Nigeria, we have the vaccine technology and the knowledge to contribute to the worldwide mission to eliminate polio. Now, we need continued leadership to ensure our children are immunised. Polio eradication is a priority worthy of our investment. If Nigeria intensifies efforts, our nation can end polio transmission by mid-2011.
“I call on all leaders to support this campaign which we can all win. If we can eradicate polio, we prove that Nigerian leaders can deliver a historic milestone to all citizens. We must join together; act boldly and definitively, to show that Nigeria is serious about defeating polio once and for all.”
Recall that the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, which was launched globally in 1988, are hinged on the following pillars- interrupting transmission of the wild poliovirus as soon as possible, achieving certification of global polio eradication, contributing to health systems development and strengthening routine immunisation while improving surveillance for communicable diseases in a systematic way.
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