Skip to main content

World Polio Day: ‘Complacency could bring polio virus back’

By

The international philanthropy Rotary has warned the country risked slipping into complacency if it gets carried with being removed from a list of polio-endemic countries.

Chairman of Rotary’s Nigeria National Polio Plus Committee, Tunji Funsho, said overwhelming emphasis on Nigeria being “polio-free” after stopping transmission of type 1 wild poliovirus for the past 15 months might lead to complacency.
At a press briefing to commemorate World Polio Day in Abuja, Funsho said, “We have gone a full year without polio, but for us to truly be polio free, we need to go two more years, and it promises to be tough.”
World Health Organisation is to officially inform Nigerian government on October 26 of its being removed from a list of endemic countries that now has only Pakistan and Afghanistan, some 15 months after the last recorded case of type 1 polio since July 2014.
Type 2 poliovirus has not been recorded in the past 17 years, and there has been no record of type 3 poliovirus in the past 34 months. But Funsho explained that Nigeria will need to go without new polio infections until 2017 before it is certified free and the virus eradicated.
Rotary, which has spent some $300m to fight polio in Nigeria, said eradicating the virus will require intensified routine immunisation and better efforts to reach children in security-compromised areas.
Misbahu Didi, president of Polio Survivors Group, which is staging a walk and para-soccer competition in Abuja this weekend, said survivors crippled by childhood polio need support and encouragement to function in society.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

By
Many people thought Nollywood actor, IK Ogbonna and his Colombian fiancee were crazy when the duo hooked up off a couple of romantic exchanges over the Instagram. With barely anything to hold on to, the Colombian Sonia Lareinaa left her family and country to come to Nigeria to settle with her hunk here. With open hands IK welcomed her. It is stuff made of crazy love. “She’s an awesome person and we met off social media; I left a breakup and at that point in time I was really not thinking of getting into any relationship. A friend of mine pointed her instagram page to me and I wasn’t really interested in surfing the internet at that point in time, but then again, I had a second look at her page and I was liking her pictures and unconsciously she was liking my pictures and from there, we started talking and it was almost as if it was just meant to be. It was just two people with like minds coming together with a lot of positive chemistry being built up and then before you know anyt...
Post a Comment
Read full story »

IS suicide bomber in guise of a woman kills 10 at Yemen Houthi mosque

By
At least 10 Muslim worshippers performing Eid al-Adha prayers were killed on Thursday when an Islamic State suicide bomber disguised as a woman blew himself up at a mosque run by Yemen's Houthi group, security sources said. Islamic State's branch in Yemen said the attack at al-Balili mosque, just outside the Old City of Sanaa, had killed or wounded dozens of "rejectionists". The Sunni militant group uses that term to describe Shi'ite Muslims it deems to be heretics.
Post a Comment
Read full story »