Polio to be eradicated in Nigeria this year ?Minister

[Shiloh]

Source: http://www.triumphnewspapers.com/polt2712010.html

SAFAR 12 1431 A.H.
WEDNESDAY JANUARY 27, 2010.

Polio to be eradicated in Nigeria this year ?Minister

The minister of state for health, Dr Idi Hong, said in Abuja yesterday that polio would be eradicated in the country this year.
Hong gave the assurance at the unveiling of Dan Maraya Jos, a local musician, as Rotary polio ambassador for 2010.
``We are witnessing a remarkable progress in the country when it comes to eradicating polio.
``Ending polio in Nigeria by 2010 is possible from the figures and commitment we have received so far, it is durable and God willing we are going to be polio free this year,? he said.
Hong noted that in 2008, cases of wide polio virus (WPV) was almost 800, in the first half of 2009 it was 360 while toward the end the country witnessed only 28 cases.
He added that when the figures in 2009 were put together it would be less than 50 per cent of what was witnessed in 2008.
Hong said that ``all hands must be on deck'' in order to sustain the tempo, adding that the country would soon be removed from among the four countries that had been of ``great burden of transmission of WPV in the world''.
In a welcome address, Mr Busuyi Onabolu, the Chairman, Nigeria National Polio Plus Committee, said the country needed to double its efforts in order to complete the job.
Onabolu noted that there were still challenges that needed to be surmounted such as non-compliance, especially in the endemic local government areas of the Northern states.
``As part of the efforts to find solution to these challenges, we zeroed in on the popular Hausa folklorist Dan Maraya Jos who no doubt has become a living legend with his lyrics.
``The music has gained acceptance among the low and mighty in the towns and even the remotest rural areas,? he said.
Onabulo said the musician would use his special musical gift to reach out and persuade his audience to accept polio vaccines and immunisation.
Also speaking, Dr Peter Eriki, WHO representative, said it was critical that the progress was sustained and remaining challenges addressed as urgently as possible.
Eriki noted that the key areas to address were reaching communities with education through innovative and motivational messages.
He assured the country of WHO?s total commitment to supporting the country and also work with the partners.
Alhaji Muhammad Pate, Executive Director, National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) said there had not been any cases of WPV in 2010.
Pate stressed the need for the country to remain focused to enable it be removed from the list of affected countries.
``It is an important achievement that never happens in the history of polio,? he said.
He called on the vaccination team to be dedicated to their work as it would go a long way to make the country free of polio.

 

[Pathfinder]

Re: Polio to be eradicated in Nigeria this year ?Minister

NIGERIA: Violence delays polio vaccinations

<!--docTitle--><!--Attention ligne utilis?e pour l'impression-->Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN)

Date: 09 Mar 2010

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DAKAR, 9 March 2010 (IRIN) - A polio vaccination campaign in the violence-wracked central Nigerian city of Jos has been delayed until 13 March due to the violence and an on-going health worker strike, aid workers said.

"We needed more time to plan because of the displacement that happened after the previous violence [in January] said Mathew Dabup, The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) polio immunization manager in Plateau State, which includes Jos.

IFRC has been conducting training for health workers who did not join the strike in Plateau State he told IRIN. IFRC is one of the agencies running a weeklong regional campaign to vaccinate at least 85 million children in West Africa against polio, a highly infectious viral disease that invades the nervous system and can cause total paralysis in a matter of hours.

The Nigeria Red Cross has estimated that some 20,000 people were displaced by violence in Jos during January. When asked if the latest violence, which has again displaced unknown numbers and killed hundreds, would disrupt the campaign, Dabup said he hoped the vaccinations would take place as planned. "We have taken into consideration in our ... [vaccination plan] the camps for the displaced, along with the other sites to target."

Violence and polio

Chris Maher, head of country operations for polio eradication at the World Health Organization (WHO), told IRIN: "Implementing vaccination activities in security-compromised areas is both logistically and operationally challenging, and it is obviously more dangerous for the staff working on the ground."

He said strategies in southern Afghanistan and the conflict-affected areas of Pakistan and Somalia included quick campaigns carried out during "lulls in conflict".

In areas like Jos, where there were "periodic acute flare-ups of civil unrest, rather than the constant levels of insecurity", WHO's strategy was to adjust the timing of vaccinations so as to reach as many children as possible while protecting health workers.

"Their dedication to ensuring that all children, even in security-compromised areas, are reached with vaccine and protected from polio, is heroic." he told IRIN.

Two hundred thousand vaccinators are trying to vaccinate 43 million children younger than five, the age group most vulnerable to infection. In Jos the goal is to reach 215,000 children - the official census of under-five children - although the actual number of children is higher, based on the more than 300,000 children vaccinated against polio in December 2009, according to IFRC.

Nigeria is the epicentre of the current outbreak in the region that erupted again in the second half of 2008. After multiple rounds of vaccinations, in 2009 the number of reported cases in Nigeria fell by half to 387, according to the multi-agency global polio eradication initiative.

Neighbouring countries in West Africa have discontinued polio vaccination campaigns in recent years, making them vulnerable to re-infection during Nigeria's 2008 outbreak. Benin, Burkina Faso, C?te d'Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo have reported polio cases in the past 12 months.

 

[Shiloh]

Re: Polio to be eradicated in Nigeria this year ?Minister

Source: http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/features/goodhealth/2010/mar/30/goodhealth-30-03-2010-04.htm

POLIO: Making Nigeria free from the virus
By TESSY IGOMU
Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Risi Ogun was born hale and hearty in 1980 with all her organs intact. She also received relevant inoculations mapped out for all new born. But at three months old, a mild fever that was taken for granted left her limbs withered and eventually encased in braces. Her deep seethed pain is based on what she described as ?the carelessness of my mother?, especially when she watches her peers move around freely.

?My mother, I was told took the symptoms for granted, hoping that I would walk at the right time. She could have saved me from the polio that crippled me. I feel sad when I see people get down from buses and I get shouted at by impatient drivers for wasting their time,? she lamented.
However, there is finally hope for children worldwide, especially those like Risi, as a new vaccine, bivalent Oral Polio Vaccine (bOPB) which provides optimal protection against Wild Polio Virus types 1 and 3 has been produced.
Polio, a historically devastating disease that has plagued the world has harvested heavily from Nigeria due to many factors that impedes its complete eradication.

Polio is a disease caused by a virus that attacks the nervous system. In most cases it causes paralysis and could lead to death by paralyzing the breathing muscles.
Children stand high risk of being infected by polio when they don?t receive the complete doses of either the Inactivated Polio Vaccine (IPV) or the Oral Polio Virus (OPV). Also, adults traveling to polio endemic countries, laboratory workers and healthcare workers likely to treat patients stand higher risk of infection without inoculation.

Until now, there has been no complete protection against this virus. Aside the challenges which have dogged the path of effective eradication, the absence of a vaccine that would effectively eliminate the two prevalent strains, Poliovirus 1 & 3 had made the victory elusive. Hence, the euphoria that greeted the recent breakthrough witnessed in the war against polio with the new bivalent Oral Polio Vaccine (bOPB).

The vaccine which had been administered to about 2.8 million children in war-torn Afghanistan, where the disease was endemic, has been described by medical experts and World Health Organisation (WHO) as a critical tool in the global eradication initiative. It is also seen as a giant leap in the drive to a polio free world as it would be massively used in other polio endemic countries.
Hundreds of children in Nigeria have had their future dreams ?altered? because of polio that has remained rooted, especially in the northern part of the country. Some of them, even though they have accepted their life of struggle, disability and social stigma still hold grudges against the government for their plight.
Musa Abu, a disabled petty trader in Agege area of Lagos is sad that the disease which incapacitated him is still ravaging Nigeria. He noted that any morning he glides to his kiosk after crossing his shrivelled legs on his skate board and meet a child in braces, he becomes very unhappy.

The drive to eradicate polio has been successful worldwide, except for Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and Nigeria (PAIN countries) where the attempts have always failed.
While Afghanistan has recorded tremendous achievement in the past years, Nigeria, especially the northern region has witnessed progressive failures. Nigeria has remained on the radar of endemic country, consistently ?winning medals? for re-infecting neighbouring African countries with the crippling disease.

It is a common sight to see children moving around in wheel chairs, braces and skateboards because of the deadly contagious disease, which has been the consequence of shunning routine immunization exercises.
Nigeria, according to WHO ?poses high risk to international health until new political commitment is translated into field level improvement in campaign quality.? The organisation has severally urged Nigeria to reduce the risk of international spread of poliovirus by urgently stopping outbreak in the north.

Since the international polio eradication campaign began in 1988, it has been eliminated from more than 120 countries. Polio cases have also decreased by over 99 per cent since 1988, from an estimated 350 000 cases then, to 1997 cases in 2006.
According to the Disease Surveillance Unit of the WHO, Nigeria has the largest number of polio cases, among the polio endemic countries. It accounts for 61 per cent of global polio cases and 95 per cent of cases in Africa.

Till date, over 100, 000 children have not been immunised in Kano State. More than 60, 000 children in Kaduna and Kastina States had not also been immunised even as Bauchi, Jigawa and Zamfara States have thousands of children not yet inoculated.
In the north, polio is not really considered an ill, especially in a society that sees street begging as a way of life; hence a polio patient is assured of survival through alms. This mindset, which has been linked to religious and political scepticism, have also played key role in the endemic nature of polio in Nigeria as the northerners are wary of the vaccines.
In a predominantly illiterate society like the north, the words of few elites or religious leaders are revered, especially when it comes to health issues.

The politics of polio runs deeper than can be imagined and the dream of wiping polio out of Nigeria might prove tougher than it seems.
For years, myths gained ground about polio vaccines. The beliefs were and are still centered on religious, tribal and political reasoning than on the fate of younger generations whose lives hang on the balance. It was believed that polio vaccines are part of the western ploy to sterilize and depopulate Africans as well as infect them with HIV AIDS.

This made leaders in the region to suspend polio vaccination in 2003. Two influential Islamic groups in Nigeria, the Supreme Council for Shariah in Nigeria (SCSN) and the Kaduna State Council of Imams had urged Muslims to resist immunization because it was dangerous.
When finally the suspicion was cleared and vaccination resumed in 2004, the break had already triggered a chain reaction that spread beyond the shores of the country. Nigeria within that short period developed a mutated version of wild polio virus which spread like wild fire, aside being exported to nearly two dozen African countries including far away Indonesia.
In 2006, 84 per cent of all confirmed wild polio viruses in Nigeria were concentrated in Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Kebbi, Bauchi and Zamfara States.

The reason for this mutated version was that Nigeria administers mainly the Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) made from a weakened live polio virus, which WHO reports has the risk of causing polio. In few instances, as the virus passes through immunized children, it mutates into deadlier version, strong enough to ignite new outbreaks, particularly when immunization rates are low among the population. This was the case in 2007 and 2008 when 69 and 801 children were paralyzed in the northern part of Nigeria. Also in 2009 additional 124 cases were reported.

Poliovirus spreads through human waste. People usually get it from contaminated food or water via stool of an infected person. Oral or nasal secretion is another method of contamination. The disease can spread widely before paralysis is reported. In as much as fever, tiredness, vomiting, stiffness of neck leg and arm are symptoms of polio, most infected people never show these signs, hence, not aware of infection. This allows the virus to be shed be intermittently in faeces, during which time, the virus spreads. Once contracted, no treatment can reverse polio paralysis. It can only be prevented through immunization and good hygiene. However, individuals can still contract the disease due to the failure of some individuals to respond to the vaccine.

The chance of re-infection especially during rainy season is very high, especially in Lagos where many people live in unsanitary conditions without functional sewage or good water supply. A reported case of polio can signal a looming epidemic. Rainy season create conditions for the poliovirus to spread intensively and as such, there is urgent need to re-double efforts to achieve a polio free Nigeria. Immunization remains the key. As long as a single child remains infected, children in all countries are at risk of contracting polio.
Polio vaccine, especially the new bivalent Oral Polio Vaccine (bOPV), according to WHO, can protect a child for life. Full immunization will remarkably reduce an individual?s risk of developing paralytic polio.

In the words of Dr. Edward Obi of EDMARK Medical Centre, acquiring the bivalent Oral Polio Vaccine might not remove Nigeria from the endemic list unless steps are taken to address the challenges militating against complete eradication. The medical doctor also opined that there must be plans to revitalize and strengthen routine immunization and primary healthcare in the country.
?Winning or losing this battle depends on collective effort of leaders. The future of generations in danger of poliomyelitis surpasses that of political, religious and selfish interests,? he stated.