Abuja, 23 March 2015 - The Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) has inaugurated the National Laboratory Containment Committee (NLCC) for polio virus.  The inauguration of the committee on 20th March 2014 in Abuja by the Executive Director(ED), National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr Ado Mohammed, is seen as a major milestone in the fight against the polio disease  in Nigeria. 

The eight-member committee is chaired by Dr Muhammad Dallatu, a virologist, working with the Usmanu Danfofiyo University, Sokoto.

Presenting his inaugural speech, the ED highlighted the key achievements in the polio eradication programme that resulted in the current successes and these  include: reduction in the number of unimmunized children during routine services by over 40% in 2014 compared to 2013; improved quality of Supplemental Immunization Activities as evidenced by the high (>80%) proportion of Local Government Areas (LGAs) accepted at coverage of >90% during the Lot Quality Assurance Sampling (LQAS); the highly sensitive Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP) surveillance in the country in which 97% of the LGAs achieved the minimum of the key surveillance indicators of Non-Polio AFP and stool adequacy rates of 2.0/100,000 of <15 years and 80% respectively. 

On his part, the World Health Organization (WHO) Country Representative (WR), Dr Rui Gama Vaz congratulated Nigeria for the achievements in polio eradication and commended the “the foot soldiers, working in the high risk and security compromised states for their commitment and sacrifice”.

Dr. Vaz noted that the containment committee is critical in avoiding the inadvertent reintroduction of WPV into the community from the laboratory as was the case with smallpox during a biosafety incident in a repository in the United Kingdom in the aftermath of smallpox eradication. He also stated that the committee will ensure that there is no resurgence of polio in the country.

Poliovirus containment is an important part of the Global Polio Eradication End Game Strategic Plan 2013-2018. The committee is therefore expected to among others, establish a national inventory of agencies or institutions with wild polio virus (WPV) infectious  material,  acquaint all biomedical laboratories with the global/Regional/National action plans for containment and follow up to validate the information received from laboratories.

Nigeria has not recorded any new cases of the wild polio virus for more than eight months. In 2014, the number of WPVs confirmed in the country was six from two states as against 53 from nine states in 2013. The last case of WPV had date of onset in July 2014.