Despite all efforts and the huge financial efforts to curb the spread of polio, the coordinator of End Polio in Africa and District Governor 9140 of Rotary International Mr Yinka Babalola has disclosed that no fewer than ninety such cases have been recorded in Nigeria this year.
Speaking in Owerri over the weekend, Babalola said that with this shocking revelation that Nigeria could be described as endemic polio country.
According to him, Rotary International will spend over $750 million (750 million dollars) within the next three years to fight the scourge.
Babalola explained that their record show that eleven out of the thirty six states of the federation are the worst hit while one hundred and ten out of the seven hundred and seventy Local Government Areas in the country are most vulnerable.
He maintained that the need to finally curb the polio menace in the remaining states and Local Governments in the country is to safeguard its resurgence thereby making nonsense of the entire effort to eradicate the disease.
He therefore stressed the need to immunize children accordingly to avoid further spread. Describing the eradication of polio as a pragmatic emergency, he said, “We have the tools, technology, resources and capacity to eliminate polio”.
