Polio Update

Sadly, Nigeria been added back onto the list of endemic countries.  Nigeria had been removed from the list of endemic countries in September 2015, following a year of no reported/detected wild poliovirus cases in the country.

However, the recent cases of wild poliovirus detected from Borno are closely linked to cases from Borno in 2011, indicating this strain has been circulating undetected since that time.  This indicates that Nigeria has always been affected by endemic circulation of wild poliovirus and, hence, it is added again to the list of endemic countries, alongside Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Operationally, neither the removal from the list nor its re-addition has an impact, as the country has always striven to improve operations (both surveillance and immunizations), particularly in hard-to-reach and security-compromised areas.  It is, in part, as a result of these efforts that cases and viruses are now being detected.