OREANDA-NEWS. August 17, 2015. Nigeria has made further advances in the battle towards eliminating polio. Since 24 July 2014, there have been no new cases of infection with the wild poliovirus registered. The country has had no new cases of the disease for more than a year, and has thereby broken the infection chain. Until recently, however, Nigeria was counted among those countries with the most new infections worldwide; indeed, in 2006 alone there were more than 1,000 cases registered. The progress made since by the African country through consistently implementing its complex national polio eradication plan represents a key milestone on the way to the global eradication of polio.

This is because alongside Afghanistan and Pakistan, Nigeria is one of the last three countries where the wild poliovirus still rears its head regularly. After three years without any new infections, India was most recently certified as being polio-free by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in March 2014. Nigeria could now follow in India’s footsteps. The first important step in this direction – no new infections registered for one year – has been achieved.

Polio-free once and for all in another two years?

If tests conducted by the WHO confirm the result in the coming weeks, in September Nigeria could be removed from the list of countries where polio is endemic. To ultimately be described as "polio free", another two years have to pass without any abnormalities.

The development in Nigeria is also significant because this disease can only be permanently defeated if the poliovirus is eradicated on a global scale. Only then can the comprehensive vaccination programmes be stopped and the huge healthcare costs saved. This will benefit poor countries in particular, which will then have more funds available for other key healthcare measures.

KfW has provided close to EUR 100 million since 2004

Nigeria has also ramped up its efforts in recent years in the fight against polio; to this end it has received greater international assistance, including from KfW, which has provided close to EUR 100 million in total since 2004 on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). These funds were used to buy vaccines as well as to prepare and implement special large-scale vaccination campaigns, in which up to 250,000 local immunisation helpers take part from time to time in northern Nigeria.

Two tranches of EUR 15 million in total, disbursed by KfW at the end of 2014, were particularly important because they were used first and foremost for remote and risky areas in northern Nigeria, where vaccination activities proved to be especially difficult on account of the political instability caused mainly by Boko Haram. Yet employing so-called "vaccination belts" around conflict zones as well as "hit-and-run" strategies succeeded in achieving such huge progress there too that Nigeria has had no new infections for a year now. "This is a massive success that nobody anticipated as quickly as this," said the responsible KfW Project Manager Wolfgang Weth, commenting on the news. "Yet all those involved may not rest on their laurels until the country really is polio-free."

Polio is an infectious disease transmitted from person to person. The poliovirus attacks nerve cells in the spinal column, resulting in permanent paralysis of the arms and legs in around 10 % of all cases, and even death. The victims are predominantly children aged under five. There is no treatment for those who have become infected. However, protection is offered by a preventive vaccination, which is now routine and provided extensively in most countries.