The German government said that they would continue to support the efforts of Nigeria in the eradication of polio.

The German government said that they would continue to support the efforts of Nigeria in the eradication of polio.

It also commended Nigeria for reaching the milestones achieved three years without any reported cases of wild polio virus.

Speaking during their visit to the Clinic of Family Health in Garki, Abuja, recently to observe the session vaccination and documentation supervision, a member of the German parliament and member of the budget committee recognizing the achievements of NPHCDA, WHO, and UNICEF in the eradication of polio and the positive impact they have made on the way.

He said: “We are happy to be on the ground to see how our money is spent, though many bad stories that have been circulating about Nigeria, it is a job well done.

“It is very heartwarming to come and see this positive achievement and we look forward to celebrating certified polio free Nigeria with you all in June 2020.”

German Ambassador to Nigeria, Mrs. Brigitt Ory led other members of the German Parliament, during the visit to the health facility.

In his remarks, the Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr Faisal Shuaib, traced the historical financial partnership with Germany on polio eradication for more than 10 years ago.

Shuaib said Nigeria has over the years, receiving millions of euros from Germany as a grant for polio eradication initiative.

Incident Manager Polio is represented by the National Emergency Operations Center, Dr Usman Adamu, he said, “This funding, which comes at different times used to purchase vaccines and immunization campaigns special financial operations.

“More recently, in December 2019 the German government released 26.8 million Euro (€ 26.8 million) channeled through the World Health Organization and UNICEF for the Nigerian government to support the operation of polio and vaccine procurement.”

In his speech, Officer-in-Charge, WHO, Dr Clement Peter stated, “Since the detection of wild polio virus three years ago, Nigeria with the support of Germany and other partners, implemented a variety of innovations during the outbreak (OBR) and is scheduled polio campaign for transmission stop of the virus.

“Surveillance has been strengthened and technological innovations such as e-surveillance and the use of audio-visual techniques for detection of the AFP and the expansion of a network of informants community help to increase further the sensitivity of surveillance for detecting suspected cases.

“Despite this progress, the current success in Nigeria is still very fragile as insecurity, which prevented access to some of the children, and suboptimal routine immunization coverage in some countries, pose a threat to sustain recent gains.

“Forty-seven percent of children nationwide have not received all three doses of polio vaccine, while 19 percent of children in Nigeria have not been vaccinated at all.”

Shuaibu urged GPEI partners and donors such as Germany to maintain their financial and technical support to the program until the job is done (free WPV1 global certification status, smoking status certification vaccine-derived polio virus (VDPV)).

Germany has been a long term supporter of the Polio Eradication Program in Nigeria, providing financial support and long outstanding for many years with grants to fill the funding gap and operations critical to the vaccine campaign across the country.