Posted on: Fri 14-05-2021

The World Health Organisation Country Representative for Nigeria, Dr. Walter Mulombo, said Nigeria and other African countries would no longer receive funds to support polio eradication activities from January 2022.

According to him, Nigeria and other countries on the continent had been removed from priority list having been declared polio-free.

A statement by the Chief Press Secretary of the FCT Minister, Anthony Ogunleye, on Thursday quoted Mulombo as saying this when he led a delegation of the WHO to update the minister on key public health issues.

He was quoted as saying, “With the declaration of Africa as polio-free, the continent is being taken off the list of priority area that the global polio eradication will support and by January of 2022, there will not be substantial funding to support polio eradication activities.

“Nigeria however needs to continue those activities to maintain a polio-free status until such a time that global eradication of the disease is achieved.”

FCT Minister, Muhammad Bello, assured stakeholders that emphasis would be placed on budgetary, support and counterpart funding in order to improve funding for WHO and other public health-related programmes.

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