Nigeria records new polio case amid N169b funding gap

ChukwuAS Nigeria prepares to reach over 50 million children aged zero to five years with 55 million doses of trivalent Oral Polio Vaccine (tOPV) between Saturday March 31 and Tuesday April 3, 2012, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) has confirmed a new case of type one Wild Polio Virus (WPV1).

Also, the GPEI says it continues to face a dangerous funding gap of N169 billion (US$1.09 billion) through end-2013, an amount that urgently needs to be filled, even as the next Expert Review Committee on Polio Eradication and Routine Immunization (ERC) will meet on March 28 to 29, 2012 to review latest epidemiology and put forward key recommendations for implementation of the national polio emergency plan.President Goodluck Jonathan at the recent inauguration of the Presidential Task Frce on Polio Eradication said Nigeria plans to spend N4.650 billion (US$30 million) yearly for 2012 and 2013 to fight polio.

According to the Weekly Update on Polio published at the weekend by GPEI: “One new case was reported in the past week with onset on 27 January, WPV1 from Zamfara State, bringing the total number of cases for 2012 to six. The most recent case had onset of paralysis on 8 February (type WPV1 from Jigawa State). The total number of cases for 2011 remains 62.”