17 cases of poliovirus variant recorded 15 LGAs – NPHCDA

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17 cases of poliovirus variant recorded 15 LGAs – NPHCDA

The National Primary Health Care Department Agency, NPHCDA, says a total of 17 circulating variant poliovirus type 2(cVPV2), cases have been recorded across 15 local government areas in eight states, this year.

Dr Muyi Aina, the Executive Director of the agency, made the disclosure in Abuja during the agency’s first quarter media briefing.

While Nigeria was declared Wild Polio Virus (WPV) free in 2020, he explained that it has since 2021, been contending with the challenge of the cVPV2 – another form of the virus that has mutated over time and started spreading.

Aina said, “12 of the 17 cases are Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP) cases, while five were found in Environmental Sites (ES).”

He said that it shows that there was still active transmission of the virus in the country which Nigeria needs to stop.

According to him, NPHCDA has embarked on strategic shift in critical components of the polio campaign, including vaccination team selection, demand generation, supervision and accountability.

The Executive Director stressed that there was an increased utilisation of primary health care centres in the country with over 20 million patient encounters across the Primary Health Care (PHC) centres per quarter, adding that it is an increase from what it was even a year ago.

Aina stated that the agency commenced the training of frontline health workers in June 2024, and in less than a year, it retrained 60,470 frontline health workers across 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) out of the 120,000 targeted for training by the current administration.

According to him, a total of N22 billion of the Basic Healthcare Provision Fund (BHCPF) was disbursed to states in 2024 through NPHCDA gateway, while N51 billion was disbursed across all four BHCPF gateways.

This year, he explained that they are substantially increasing the amount of money going to the facilities, and based on that, they are increasing the number of BHCPF-supported PHC facilities from 8,406 to 17,600 over 4 years.