Japan has donated 365-million yen (2.85 million dollars) to fight polio in Nigeria, one of a handful of countries still battling to stamp out the killer disease.
The grant, part of Japan’s $17-million contribution for the eradication of poliomyelitis and other infectious diseases in Nigeria and five other countries, will be administered by the UN Children’s Fund (Unicef), officials said on Monday.
The only other countries where polio is still considered endemic are Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and Niger. It is also still a problem in Bangladesh, Ghana, Ethiopia, and Sudan.
“Nigeria is one of the last countries in which the wild polio virus remains active,” said Japan’s ambassador to Nigeria, Akira Matsui.
Wild polio is naturally circulating polio that is not caused by the oral polio vaccine.
Japan had in 2000 and 2001 provided financial assistance totalling 1,27-billion yen (about $11-million) to procure vaccines and cold chain equipment for storing and transporting the them, the diplomat said.
Nigeria recorded 26 cases of wild polio virus as at last April, down from 95 cases in 1999, officials said.
Efforts are being intensified to stop polio virus transmission in Nigeria by the end of this year, according to Unicef?s representative in Nigeria, Christian Voumard.
Last month, Nigeria and neighbouring Niger embarked on a cross-border immunisation programme as part of what health workers hope will be the endgame of their duel with polio.
The World Health Organisation aims to have eradicated polio by 2005, after a coordinated 14-year global campaign brought down cases by 99,8% from 350 000 in 1988 to 600 in 2001.
But in some areas, high populations and low immunisation have allowed the disease to maintain a toe-hold, threatening future generations with a return to large-scale infection.
One of those areas is in the north of Nigeria — Africa’s most populous country — and its northern neighbour Niger, whose borderlands were the scene of the latest immunisation drive.
Since the Global Polio Eradication Initiative’s 1988 launch, mass immunisation campaigns have reached 575-million children.
Since then Europe and the Americas have been declared clear of the disease, which is triggered by a highly infectious virus which invades the nervous system and can cause paralysis within hours.
One in 200 infections leads to permanent paralysis and one in ten of those paralysed die.
The World Health Organisation estimates that its remaining mopping up operation against the disease will cost one billion dollars, of which 725-million has already been pledged. – AFP