The World Health Organization, WHO, has advised the Nigerian government to strengthen its routine immunisation in the North east in its stride to attain a polio-free status in 2017.
WHO director on Polio Eradication, Hamid Jafari, gave the advice at a meeting to review strategies toward eradicating polio in Nigeria on Tuesday.
Jafari said the number of children missed during immunisation in the north-east could be a big challenge standing in Nigeria’s way to attaining the polio-free status if left unchecked.
Last month, Nigeria marked one year of polio interruption, raising hope that it will soon be removed from the list of endemic countries by WHO.
The meeting had experts and government officials in attendance and it was targeted at reviewing strategies toward eradicating polio completely and attaining the WHO polio-free status by 2017.
In other to achieve this status, UNICEF Country Representative, Jean Gough, also urged the government to sustain the current momentum.
Over seven million children are targeted for immunisation against wild polio virus in 2015.
In a related development, the executive director of the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Ado Muhammad, and the chairman of the Expert Review Committee on Polio Eradication, Oyewale Tomori, havesaid the efforts were on to ensure that polio was completely eradicated and that Nigeria attained the polio free status from the WHO.
Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan are the three countries that have not been certified polio-free by WHO.