Nigeria received a total grant of US$ 14, 037,787 from Rotary International through the World Health Organisation (WHO), to strengthen polio surveillance in the country.
The chairman, Nigeria National Polio Plus Committee (NNPPC), Joshua Hassan, while making the presentation on Tuesday in Abuja, said the Rotary Foundation Trustees, at their January 2023 meeting, approved a grant of US$2,675,000.00 to support Polio eradication in Nigeria through WHO Nigeria for surveillance.
Hassan, who was a past district governor of Rotary Nigeria, said an additional grant of $4,514,785 was approved in October 2023 while on the 10th of January, 2024 another grant of $6,848,002 was approved, totalling $14,037,787.
He said: “These are all one-year grants, which must be fully expended between 31st March 2024 and 2025”.
Hassan further stated that “Rotary through Nigeria National Polio Plus Committee will continue to support polio eradication and routine immunisation in Nigeria through National Emergency Polio Operation Centre (NEOC), technical support providing accountability, training frontline polio field workers award, and recognition of good performance as well as community/social mobilization efforts to improve OPV acceptance and non-compliance resolution.”
In his response, the minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof Ali Pate, said the grant will assist the nation to eradicate all variants of polio by 2030.
Pate, while receiving the grant presentation, noted that since the country has been certified polio free, the new grant would go a long way towards efforts to eliminate the poliovirus variant that has been recorded in some parts of the country.
Expressing his satisfaction with the grant, the minister highlighted that despite the country’s certification as polio-free, the new funding will significantly contribute to endeavors aimed at eradicating the recorded poliovirus variant in parts of the country.
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