Polio Can Still Be Imported Into Nigeria – Faisal Shuaib

Dr. Faisal Shuaib has come out to say that Nigeria is not free from polio yet.

She shared this while celebrating Nigeria’s Wild Polio Virus declaration by the African Regional Commission for Certification of Polio Eradication (ARCC), an organ of World Health Organisation (WHO), with some donor partners and stakeholders in Abuja.

According to him, even if the certification means that there is no wild polio virus anywhere in the country, this does not mean the fight against it is over.

He added that we should remain alert as a nation because the virus can still be imported from other endemic countries.

His words, “As a matter of fact, even, the earlier the work starts, because we have to maintain this status.

”This means we have to continue to give our kids the vaccination that they need against the virus, and all the other vaccine preventable diseases.”

”We should not forget that we still have Afghanistan and Pakistan that are endemic for wild polio viruses, which means there is still a potential that these viruses may be imported into Nigeria.”

“We live in a global village, you can see how COVID-19 spread so fast from China, by the same token, we could have wild polio virus spread from these two endemic countries.”