Niger state government on Friday solicited more support from the World Health Organisation (WHO) to eradicate poliomyelitis and other diseases in the state.
Gov. Umaru Bago of Niger made the request in Minna when he received a delegation led by Dr Jamal Ahmed, Coordinator for Polio Eradication Initiative, WHO Regional Office for Africa.
Represented by his Deputy, Mr Yakubu Garba, the governor appealed to the organisation for increased funding to curb polio and other preventable diseases.
He explained that the assessment of performance of the state in areas of public health would spur the government to do more on its activities.
He added that funding was one of the major problems affecting the health sector.
“On counterpart funding, we met a huge debt of which we have been able to pay our entire part because health is our top priority.
“But like Oliver Twist, we need more funding from you to do perform better especially in the areas of surveillance, supplementary immunization, capacity building and regular review meetings,’’ he said.
He thanked the organisation for its intervention in the state which, according to him, had amounted to N1.1 billion during the period under review.
Earlier, Ahmed said the team came to review progress made in eradicating outbreak of variant polio viruses ravaging Niger state and affecting neighbouring states like Kastina, Zamfara and Sokoto.
He commended Niger state government for establishing a solid structure at both the state, local government and ward levels.
Ahmed said the state had done well in its response efforts as it had conducted the third round of the immunization.
.Ahmed disclosed that WHO had spent N1.1 billion on its intervention in the state and urged the state government to increase its funding in primary healthcare and strengthened its coordination activities.
He said the assessment exercises were on-going across ten other states to take stocks of level of response to polio outbreak.
Ahmed added that Nigeria had made a remarkable progress in reducing the new polio variant by 95 per cent.
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