Posted on: Fri 02-10-2020

THE Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria (MHWUN) has honoured individuals who have contributed to Nigeria’s feat in eradicating the Wild Poliovirus.

Among the 56 awardees were the Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire; Chairman, National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Alhaji Salihu Aliero; Executive Director/ceo of NPHCDA, Dr. Faisal Shuaib; Senator Chukwuka Utazi, Senator Ibrahim Oloriegbe, Hon. Tanko Sununu, and Dr. Ayuba Wabba.

Posthumous awards were also received by families of six individuals, whose contributions pushed Nigeria to an historical breakthrough. In his solidarity message during the event to celebrate Nigeria’s polio eradication certification, the Chairman of MHWUN, FCT chapter, Comrade Abubakar Shanabo, lauded Nigeria’s achievement of the Wpv-free status and urged stakeholders to strengthen surveillance and immunisation programmes to sustain the success achieved so far.

In an interview, Ehanire, said: “The challenge is to rebuild the health sector and the occurrence of COVID-19 pandemic presents a situation that draws attention to these needs. Most countries

Abuja of the world have seen defects in their own health systems; same with Nigeria.

“There is going to be reforms in management, and of course, funding is important. But we also have to learn to make better use of the funds that we get and be able to achieve targets that show that we are spending money properly for Nigerians and getting the results that we are expecting and getting the position that Nigeria should be in in global affairs, with regards to health.”

Shuaib said the lessons learnt from polio eradication would help in solving problems in several areas in the sector.

“We are going to use the same strategy and resources that have made it possible for us to eradicate the wild poliovirus. We have learnt so much from the almost three decades of trying to eradicate wild poliovirus disease,” he said.

“The great thing is that the National Assembly, working with the Executive, has made the basic healthcare provision a reality and just a few days ago, the Minister of Health approved the disbursement of funds all the way to the states and primary health care sectors.”

Source: thenation

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