End in sight for polio menace in Nigeria?

The nation’s status as one of the only four countries globally where the transmission of wild polio virus (WPV) is prevalent, has over the years been a source of concern not only to public health experts in the country, but to stakeholders within the health sector and various international donor community.

Considering Nigeria’s influence on the African continent, its population size, and the fact that it is the only African country in the category of other polio endemic countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India; christened PAIN, it isn’t difficult to understand why the polio situation in the country has attracted increased attention.

While the World Health Organisation (WHO) has mandated all polio-endemic countries to completely halt the transmission of WPV before 2012, the Federal Government’s deadline to eradicate polio within the next six months may suffer a setback following the discovery of 15 confirmed polio cases in Kebbi, Borno, Sokoto, Kano, and Zamfara States since January 2011 as against four cases same time last year.

Following the latest resurgence of polio which has been traced to the non-commitment of some governors and local council chairmen to the Abuja Declaration on Polio eradication in Nigeria, public health experts have re-echoed the sentiments of the global health body to make concerted efforts towards immunising children against polio cases in the 36 states even as violence in some northern states is believed to have disrupted activities of the immunisation teams in the areas.

In a chat with BusinessDay recently, Adebiyi Bolaji, chief medical director, Alimosho General Hospital, Igando, Lagos, revealed that to eradicate polio, communities/villages must get health services, drugs and improved hygiene.

While noting that polio (poliomyelitis) is a highly infectious disease caused by a virus that not only invades the nervous system but can also cause total paralysis in a matter of hours, Adebiyi maintained that the only way to eliminate polio is to raise children’s immunity permanently through vaccination, so the virus can find no host from one settlement to another.

According to him, “the upsurge in polio cases constitutes a setback to the limited successes already recorded in the efforts to eradicate the disease. Stopping polio means that our families will never again lose another child to this crippling and disfiguring disease. How then do we completely eliminate polio from Nigeria? Every child under five in every city, village and settlement must receive oral polio vaccine (OPV) according to stipulated dose.

“At health clinics during routine immunisation session, babies should receive four doses of oral polio vaccine (at birth, six weeks, 10 weeks and fourteen weeks). During Immunisation Plus Days (IPDs), every child under five should be vaccinated every time, at home, school, mosque, church, playground, on the street and everywhere,” Adebiyi disclosed.

On his part, Immanuel Abanida, director of Immunisation, National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), who confirmed the 15 cases of WPV since January 2011, stated that this upsurge is partly due to rejection of the vaccine in some parts of the country and other logistic problems.

“We recognised the rise and we began a 14-day Immunisation Plus Days (IPDs) in the 19 northern states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on Sunday, June 19, 2011 which ended on Friday, July 2, 2011. There is increasing insecurity in some areas of the country, and there are concerns that this could potentially impact on polio eradication activities. A national emergency plan for polio eradication has now been finalised and disseminated to state commissioners as part of efforts to intensify the eradication activities in the country,” Abanida stated.

While Nigeria’s fight against polio has attracted attention from the international community with Rotary International, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, UNICEF and the World Health Organisation, raising millions of dollars to fund polio vaccines, it is believed that the recent increase in polio cases could be linked to the collapse of the nation’s primary health care sector. Also linked to the current upsurge is the weakness of government’s enlightenment campaign, which is needed to highlight the merit of the polio vaccine and rid the local populace of pervasive ignorance.

Recall that in 2009, Rotary International reported that polio cases in Nigeria had dropped by more than half, down to 388 cases from 783 cases in 2008. Cases due to type 1 – wild poliovirus, according to the body, had dropped to 74 cases from 707.


The 2009 progress was attributed to higher level of vaccination, with the ratio of vaccinated Nigerian children in high risk areas rising above 90 percent for the first time in history. During the campaign’s Immunisation Plus Days in October 2009, more than 30 million children were vaccinated.
There is no gainsaying that if policy pronouncement, seminars, workshops and conferences were solutions to problem of polio, the disease would have long been forgotten in Nigeria.

While at different fora, the polio eradication campaign in Nigeria has continued to receive commitments from top government functionaries and non-governmental organisations (NGO), traditional and religious leaders, who have also been in forefront of the campaigns.


The task before Onyebuchi Chukwu, the re-appointed Minister of Health, is to ensure that the nation’s primary health care sector is revamped as it is the bedrock of healthcare. There is a need to enhance security and particularly stop the menace of terrorist attacks in the North, to pave the way for unfettered operations by the immunisation teams.

Aside this, the health authorities at various levels need to strengthen their various mechanisms for the distribution of the vaccines. In addition, there is the need to ensure that polio eradication drive by the Federal Government, the Ministry of Health as well as other relevant agencies, is made a major priority, even as continued leadership on the part of governors, traditional and church leaders is expected.