Nigeria To Step Up Efforts At Eradicating Polio And Cholera

Nigeria To Step Up Efforts At Eradicating Polio And Cholera

Nigeria's Minister of Health, Onyebuchi Chukwu says the success in eliminating Guinea worm disease will inspire Nigeria to fight polio and cholera to a halt.

Speaking at a news conference in Atlanta, U.S., Chukwu said Nigeria reported its last case of Guinea worm in November 2008 in Enugu State, eastern Nigeria, noting a bounty has been put on guinea worm in the country with a ten thousand naira reward for anyone who finds any case of guinea worm.  

Chukwu commended the Atlanta-based Carter Center and Abuja-based Yakubu Gowon centre for their leading roles in making guinea worm eradication a success in Nigeria. 

MAINTAINING SURVEILLANCE

Dr. Onyebuchi Chukwu said the Ministry and its partners were maintaining surveillance and giving incentives to the public to ensure that a single case of guinea worm was not missed.

Chukwu and former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, were in Atlanta to receive the Carter Center award for guinea worm eradication in Nigeria.

General Gowon said he was unaware of the disease' enormity until the Carter recruited him to help lead the fight against the disease in Nigeria.

ERADICATION

Gowon said the sight of people of all ages in pain, touched and moved him to action and the determination to ensure its eradication.

The former U.S. president, Jimmy Carter commended Nigeria and Niger for becoming the latest African countries to halt the disease since the eradication campaign began in 1986.

He said less than one thousand eight hundred cases of the illness were reported in 2010, with about ninety-four per cent of them located in South Sudan, while the rest of the cases were found in Mali, Ethiopia and a recent outbreak in Chad.

Carter said that his efforts to stamp out diseases had taught him to have confidence in local residents.

 Nigeria and Niger were each presented with a mahogany and enamel sculpture. The gifts were inscribed with the year in which the country stopped the transmission of Guinea worm disease.

NAN/Margaret/ Elewedalu