The German government has commended Nigeria’s efforts in the eradication of polio, having achieved the milestone of reaching three years without reporting any case of wild poliovirus.
Germany has been a long term supporter of the Polio Eradication Program in Nigeria, providing tremendous and longstanding financial support over the years with grants to fill critical funding gaps for vaccines and campaign operations across the country.
The Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr. Faisal Shuaib, traced the historical financial partnership with Germany on Polio Eradication to over 10 years ago.
Addressing the German Ambassador, Her Excellency Mrs. Brigitt Ory, and the Members of Parliament, during their visit to a Family Health Clinic in Garki, Abuja to observe a vaccination session and surveillance documentation, Dr. Shuaib revealed that Nigeria has over the years, received millions of Euros from Germany as grants for Polio Eradication Initiative.
Represented by the Incident Manager of the National Polio Emergency Operations Center, Dr Usman Adamu, he said, “These funds, which came in at different times were used to purchase vaccines and finance operations of special immunization campaigns.
“Just recently, in December 2019, the German Government released 26.8 Million Euros (€ 26,800,000) channeled through the World Health Organization and UNICEF to the Nigerian government to support polio operations and procure vaccines”.
In his remarks, the Officer-in-Charge (OiC), World Health Organization (WHO), Dr Clement Peter stated, “Since the detection of the wild poliovirus three years ago, Nigerian Government with support from Government of Germany and other partners implemented various innovations during outbreak response (OBR) and scheduled polio campaigns to halt transmission of the virus. Surveillance has been strengthened and technological innovations such as e-Surveillance and use of audiovisual techniques for AFP detection and expansion of community informant network helped to further increase sensitivity of surveillance to detect any suspect cases.
“In spite of this progress, the current success in Nigeria is still very fragile as insecurity, which hinders access to some children, and suboptimal routine immunization coverage across several states, pose a threat to sustaining recent gains. 47 per cent of children nationally have not received their third dose of polio vaccine, whilst 19 per cent of children in Nigeria have not received any vaccination at all”.
He then called on non GPEI partners and donors such as Germany to sustain their technical and financial support to the programme until the job is done (global certification of WPV1-free status, certification of vaccine-derived polio virus (VDPV) free status).
Speaking on behalf of the Government of Germany, a Member of Parliament who is also part of the budget committee acknowledged the achievements of NPHCDA, WHO, and UNICEF in Polio Eradication and the positive impact they have made in the journey.
The representative said, “We are happy to be on ground to see how our money is being spent, despite a lot of bad stories that have been circulating about Nigeria, it is a job well done. It is very heartwarming to come and see these positive achievements and we look forward to celebrating a certified Polio free Nigeria with you all in June 2020”.
The last wild polio virus case was detected in August 2016, in Monguno Local Government (LGA) of Borno State. As we approach certification in 2020, the WHO assured that it remains committed and vigilant in its support to immunization and surveillance efforts, in ensuring that every child is reached with vaccines.