The National Primary Health Care Development Agency ha said that Nigeria was on course to win the fight against polio in the shortest possible time.
The agency made this known on Tuesday at a summit in Abuja to review the routine immunisation against polio in Nigeria.
The agency said three years and counting without the wild polio virus in the most populous African country was nothing short of a milestone.
“The toward a polio-free Nigeria has begun. However, there’s the need for health workers to access insecure areas in Borno and some parts of the North-East region,” said Faisal Shuaib, head of the NPHCDA.
Experts attending the two-day summit in Abuja are expected to review Nigeria’s efforts toward polio eradication and identify gaps.
According to Shuaib, progress had been recorded on reaching inaccessible children, sustaining communication and social mobilisation, strengthening routine immunisation and vaccine management and accountability.
“Together, we can finish the job of flushing polio out of the country,” the official said, further expressing the optimism that Nigeria will soon obtain a polio eradication certificate.
He said health officials in the country had worked tirelessly with a very strong surveillance system.
As recently as 2012, Nigeria had accounted for more than half of all polio cases worldwide, according to the World Health Organisation.
Nigeria’s last polio case was recorded in August 2016, making it the last country in Africa to record wild polio virus infections.
