Polio Outbreak in Nigeria, a Public Health Emergency for the Lake Chad Basin’

Paul Obi in Abuja with agency report

The Ministers of Health of the member states of the Lake Chad Basin have declared that the recent polio outbreak in Nigeria remains a public health emergency not only for Nigeria but for all the countries of the Lake Chad Basin.

This was contained in a document signed by the Ministers of Health from the Lake Chad Basin countries which include Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Central Africa Republic and Cameroon during the 66th session of the World Health Organization Regional Committee for the African Region, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

They requested Nigeria and other member states to fully implement coordinated outbreak response in order to quickly prevent the spread of the outbreak to other countries.

The member states expressed “the need to extend support to the response by including political advocacy and community engagement at all levels, this will lead to a successful coordination and implementation of harmonized polio vaccination activities across the countries of the Lake Chad sub-region.”