Honorable ministers;
Distinguished guests;
Ladies and gentlemen
Good morning, and thank you very much for joining us so early this morning to this side event on strengthening surveillance for polio eradication certification in the African Region. Thank you all for everything you and your teams are doing.
The African Region had made tremendous progress towards polio eradication, but after not confirming any wild poliovirus for close to 2 years, we suffered a set-back in 2016.
During the 66th session of the Regional Committee in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia last year, I informed the Member States of a wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) outbreak in the insecure areas of Borno State in Nigeria and the threat of the poliovirus spreading to other countries. We were indeed disappointed, but I’m glad to say that on the sidelines.
I quickly convened a side meeting at the same Regional Committee with the Honourable Ministers of Health of Nigeria, Cameroun, Central African Republic, Chad and Niger, whereby the Honourable Ministers of these Lake Chad Basin countries declared the polio outbreak in Nigeria as a public health emergency of the sub-region and quickly and collectively took action.
I am pleased to inform you that last week, on 21 August 2017, the African Region reached an important milestone towards polio eradication that a year has passed since the latest case of wild poliovirus in Nigeria.
I would like to congratulate the Governments of Nigeria and the other governments concerned, Cameroun, Central African Republic, Chad and Niger for their gallant efforts, with support from global polio eradication partners to work on ensuring the outbreak doesn’t spread.
Although a lot of progress has been made with the support of the military in the insecure areas to allow access, there is need for us to be cautious as some areas have still remained inaccessible to vaccination and surveillance teams due to insecurity.
I commend the continued efforts of governments and partners, we are all learning new ways of how to increasing accessibility to these insecure areas to avoid missing any lingering polio circulation.
Looking forward - to eradication - I would like to remind all of us that a Region can only be certified to have eradicated polio if 3 years have passed without wild poliovirus confirmation, AND polio surveillance performance has been maintained at certification level. So not only no cases, but surveillance of sufficient quality.
Therefore, if no new wild polio virus is confirmed, and surveillance is quickly strengthened, the African Region can be certified to have eradicated polio by end 2019.
However, this is the reason we invited you to this meeting, with the existing gaps in surveillance particularly at sub-national levels in a number of countries, in both secure and insecure areas, we as the Region risks NOT being certified to have eradicated polio by the end of 2019.
That would be a disaster. We should, therefore, urgently strengthen polio surveillance performance, supported by robust data quality, in all our countries, whether you’ve seen a polio case or not – we have to recommit to strengthen polio surveillance.
The Africa Heads of State declared at their African Union meeting in South Africa in June 2015 that “Polio eradication would be their legacy for future generations”.
Furthermore, in January 2017, the Addis Ababa Declaration by Heads of State in January 2017 called for Governments to further invest in immunization services which are key for sustaining the gains towards polio eradication and post certification of polio eradication.
We are asking that we work together to ensure that this legacy is a reality and that the African Region is declared to have eradicated polio by end 2019.
Efforts to urgently strengthen polio surveillance in our countries will be critical in achieving the polio eradication certification on our continent.
I’d like to assure you of the commitment of WHO – all our technical teams, the director general, myself and Head Office - to ensure that certification of polio eradication is achieved.
That will be a major historical achievement for public health in the Region and globally, and let us all be part of that history.
Thank you for your attention.