By Isah Hussein
The Expert Review Committee (ERC) on Polio and Routine Immunization in Nigeria has held it’s 38th meeting to review and recommend measures for keeping the polio virus out of Nigeria.
The Chairman of the ERC, Prof. Akin Osibogun while declaring the meeting open at the NAF Conference Centre, Abuja, on Monday, March 14th observed that the last meeting of the committee was held over 2years ago and it was the prelude to Nigeria and the African region’s certification of wild Polio-Free Status.
He said that the certification event of 25 August 2020 was a great milestone in the history of the country as president buhari on behalf of the federal government and the African region received the certificate of the African region WPV-free status at the presidential villa.
He remarked that the Federal Ministry of Health and the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) took the recommendations of the 37th ERC 2019 meeting very seriously and since then, “we have made appreciable progress both in terms of routine immunization and in our efforts to control the circulating variant polio virus type 2.
For routine immunization, he said that; “despite the pandemic, we’ve seen a steady improvement in the immunization coverage from 33% in 2017 to 56% in 2022.
“Although we recognize that as of 2019, before the pandemic we had reached a height of 71% within 2 years and despite attaining a height of 71% in routine immunization since 2017, there still remains a lot of variability among the states.
“While some states are doing very well, others are not and even within the states , there are some local government that still need support.
“The cVDPV2, has been a major concern during the last ERC meeting, and today the outbreak has snow-balled to even greater proportions to become one of the greatest challenges the country has faced in the polio programme, apart from the recent detection of Wild Polio Virus type 1 (WPV1) in Malawi in February, and WPV 3 report in Israel this March.
“This brings it very close to home that it is not over until it is over.
“The report from Malawi indicates that, we must strengthen our surveillance systems to ensure that we don’t have wild circulating polio virus in Nigeria.
“The virus in Malawi has been circulating for two years before it was detected. We must not allow this to happen in Nigeria.
“This is why I hope that at end of this meeting, we not only hadave a clear and powerful recommendation that’ll strengthen our ability to detect any circulating polio viruses but also, make sure that we are ready to respond effectively to any important cases of wild polio virus.
“The 37th ERC has offered us guidance on how to contain cVPV2 spread, which has unfortunately now spread more to affect 29 States of the federation and FCT, including states in the Southern zones of the country.
“One of this guidance was the use of novel Oral Polio vaccine (nOPV2) which has been shown to be effective in halting the spread of cVPV2.
Prof. Osibogun said, so far, “all 36 States and FCT have completed at least two rounds of nOPV2, 18 states have completed at least four rounds of nOPV2 Outbreak Response, 3 states have completed three rounds, while an additional 16 states have completed at least two rounds of nOPV2 Outbreak response.
“Our surveillance system has remained robust despite the global COVID-19 pandemic that had a negative impact on the health system.
“In 2020, our surveillance had picked and detected 22 cases of CDVPV2, in 2021, 1027 cases and in 2022, 11 cases have already been detected. Although the figures may look scary, it is a demonstration that our surveillance system is effective, reliable and also means that if there is an Wild Polio Virus in circulation, it would have been detected.
“COVID-19 has impacted negatively not only on the economy, our social lives, but also the immunization programme, where planned campaigns were suspended to address the pandemic.
He However said that, “it is heart-warming to announce that about 19,316, 980 Nigerians have been vaccinated with first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine; 8,799,052 have taken second dose; while 725,459 have taken the booster dose.
This he said is actually a far cry from the government’s plan to vaccinate 50 percent of the total population of the country by the end of March 2022.
He stressed that with the currently rolled out optimised SCALES Strategy and the Mass Vaccination Campaign (MVC) presently ongoing across the country, “we are expecting a massive jump in the COVID-19 uptake throughout the country.
“We now have vaccines and we have now drilled down to microplanning, starting from the ward level, to Local Government to State and then to National, having a bottom up approach.
The Director NPHCDA Dr. Faisal Shaib in his remarks said that given the ease of human travel, it has become imperative to bring the Nigeria’s polio eradication programme up to speed
He said Nigeria had fought a long and hard battle to rid the country of the virus before it’s eventual certification as a Polio Virus-Free Country and we must not let those gains slip by
It has become even more imperative, he said, ” for us to put in place strategies to prevent the importation of the Wild Polio Virus(WPV) and the reconstitution of ERC is one of such strategies.
He said that the objectives set before the committee is to advise on strategies to prevent the reintroduction of the WPV in Nigeria and end the circulating vaccine derived polio virus in Nigeria through strengthening of the immunization programmes, EFP surveillance, community mobilization and advocacy, environmental monitoring and other appropriate strategies.
The ongoing meeting will end on the 15 of March 2022
The ERC is a body constituted to provide expert advice and guidance on strategies and approaches for polio eradication and routine immunization.
The committee meets periodically to review the country’s polio eradication and routine immunization programmes taking into consideration population-based and laboratory studies, programmatic approaches, cost information, and other issues so as to provide a holistic and practical advice to the country.
The ERC’s expert advice contributed immensely to the country’s achievement of WPV-free status in August 2020.
The ERC is expected to work with the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency to come up with multistakeholder plans to strengthen surveillance, build population immunity, mitigate against and control all forms of polio viruses.
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