Nigeria's three-year milestone takes Africa towards polio eradication

ABUJA/LONDON: Nigeria marked three years free of endemic wild polio on Wednesday with health officials saying the nation’s progress in fighting the crippling viral disease could result in the whole of Africa being declared polio-free early next year.

The three-year milestone sets in motion a continent-wide process to ensure that all 47 countries of the World Health Organization’s African region have eradicated the virus, health officials said.

Africa’s last case of wild polio was recorded in Nigeria’s Borno State in August 2016.

“We are confident that soon we will be trumpeting the certification that countries have, once and for all, kicked polio out of Africa,” the WHO’s regional director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, told reporters in a telebriefing.

Polio is a viral infection that attacks the nervous system and can cause irreversible paralysis within hours. Children under five are the most vulnerable, but people can be fully protected with preventative vaccines.

Wild polio remains endemic in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but case numbers worldwide have been reduced largely because of intense national and regional immunization for babies and children.

Latest Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) figures show that there have been a total of 65 cases of wild polio worldwide so far in 2019 – 53 in Pakistan and 12 in Afghanistan.

The GPEI, which is backed by the WHO, Rotary International and others, began its push to wipe out polio in 1988, when the disease was endemic in 125 countries and was paralyzing almost 1,000 children a day globally. Since then, there has been at least a 99 percent reduction in cases.

At a briefing in Nigeria’s capital Abuja, Clement Peter, the WHO’s country representative, said the next six months would be “most critical” to whether Africa can be declared polio-free.

“Nigeria will submit its final country data for evaluation in March 2020, provided there are no new wild polio cases,” Peter said.

“If the data confirms zero cases, the entire WHO (Africa) region could receive wild polio-free certification as soon as mid-2020.”