Lessons from a polio-free Nigeria

The World Health Organisation (WHO) in September formally removed Nigeria from the list of polio-endemic countries. This came after Nigeria reported no cases of wild polio virus (WPV) for more than a year, with no samples testing posi­tive for WPV across the entire country. Only Pakistan and Afghanistan are left on the list of polio-endemic countries.

Considering that just a decade ago Nigeria was recording 1,000 polio cases a year, the highest in the world, and just three years ago it accounted for more than half the world’s cases, this is truly a remarkable achievement. It is reminiscent of how Nigeria last year successfully fought the Ebola Virus Disease.

To get to this stage in its fight against polio, Nigeria has had to confront many obstacles, including an immunisation boycott through a ban on vaccination in some northern states and malicious rumours that the vaccine was a plot to sterilise Muslims and spread HIV/AIDS, brutal Boko Haram insurgents who assassinated vaccinators, the challenge of reaching every child in even the remotest villages, among others.

Prioritising the polio fight, the Federal Government established emergency operations centres to coordinate vaccination campaigns and reach children in previously inaccessible areas, engaged traditional and religious leaders and polio survivors in immunisation campaigns, and used thousands of voluntary workers to build trust. In January 2009 traditional leaders throughout the country pledged to support immunisation campaigns and push parents to have their children vaccinated. As one report puts it, “Armies of women mobilised alongside religious and community leaders, polio survivors and volunteer vaccinators going door-to-door to win hearts, change minds – and save millions of children from a paralysing disease.”

It is indeed a remarkable achievement, and we applaud the efforts of the Federal Government and the millions of people in Nigeria and around the world who have committed themselves to eradicating this crippling disease. This extraordinary achievement “really shows the value of government leadership and taking ownership of the programme”. Indeed, as Rotary International said in a statement, “This achievement is a tribute to the hard work of countless health care work­ers, traditional leaders, over 400,000 volunteers and the government who managed to turn the programme in Nige­ria around by reaching over 45 million children repeat­edly with polio vaccines.”

We specially commend the WHO, Rotary International, CDC, UNICEF and other partners who in 1988 initiated the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) aimed at eliminating the disease, an effort that has become “the largest collective public health movement in history”. Rotary International, for instance, has to date helped 194 countries stop the transmission of polio through the mass immuni­sation of children, and it continues to make funding commitment targeting coun­tries where children remain at risk of contracting “this in­curable, but vaccine-prevent­able, disease”. Just recently it donated $26.8 million to African countries, including $6.9 million to Nigeria, to ensure the disease does not return.

But it is not yet uhuru and we cannot rest on our oars. Nigeria still has two more years before it, alongside the whole of Africa, can be certified officially polio-free by the WHO. Until then, as Margaret Chan, WHO director-general, said recently, we must avoid all actions capable of reversing the gains achieved in the fight to permanently eradicate the virus in the country but must continue the march “until next two years when the country will have been certified free and we can turn attention to other things”. To this effect, federal and state governments must continue meeting the financial commitments to sustain the momentum at polio eradication efforts.

To buttress this point, the words of Tunji Funsho, chairman of Rotary’s Nigeria National Polio Plus Committee, come in handy: “We must remain vigilant and ensure that all children are immun­ised again polio until Nigeria is certified polio-free and in­deed the world is certified polio-free. No child is safe from the polio virus until no more polio virus exists on this planet.”

Finally, it is evident from the successes recorded in the fight against Ebola and polio that commitment and collaboration are key. We therefore call for the same commitment and concerted efforts displayed in the fight against Ebola and polio to be extended to numerous other deadly but preventable diseases that continue to send millions of our countrymen and women to early graves.