FG to deploy polio resources to flatten COVID-19 curve — NPHCDA

• As Nigeria Gets Poliovirus-free Status Certification On Tuesday 

The Federal Government wants to deploy same resources used in eradicating poliovirus and Ebola to flatten COVID-19 curve. 
Meanwhile, Nigeria will on Tuesday, receive polio-free status certification from the independent Africa Regional Certification Commission of the World Health Organisation (WHO), having not recorded any case of Wild Polio Virus (WPV) in the past three years. 

Executive Secretary of the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr. Faisial Shuaib, who said this during distribution of 456 motorcycles and 456 laptops procured by the agency for low performing local councils on routine immunisation, yesterday, in Abuja, said routine immunisation in Nigeria has doubled from 30 percent to 70.8 percent.

He said: “In this country, we used the same polio resources to eradicate Ebola and with the work being done by the agency and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), we are going to use the same resources to flatten the curve of COVID-19 outbreak. We have seen unprecedented increase in routine immunisation coverage, which has doubled within a short period. We are donating the motorcycles to frontline workers to ensure that they have logistics to get to the last miles, while laptops will provide direct access to credible and reliable data.

“ Three years ago, when we declared an emergency on the low routine immunisation coverage, we recognised that it would take more than a rhetoric to ensure we achieve our goal of ensuring that no child in Nigeria is left behind in getting all the vaccines they need to grow into healthy and productive adults in the society…” 

Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, said one major challenge under COVID-19 is health workforce infection, which has depleted available manpower.

adding that NPHCDA in collaboration with development partners, has conducted training of over 200,000 health workers to enable them make their work environment safe, a key tenet in outbreak management, along with other activities aimed at resisting destructive COVID-19 effects.