Nigeria will soon be getting more help in its battle against polio as the World Bank Group’s Board of Executive Directors has approved a $200m loan to help the nation in the fight to eradicate polio and sustain the routine immunisation of children under five years and women of reproductive age.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the Senior Communication Specialist at the World Bank in Abuja, Mr. Obadiah Tohomdet, said the loan request was approved on Friday in Washington D.C.
According to him, Nigeria is making significant progress towards polio eradication, with no new cases of polio virus reported since July 2014.
He said the additional financing would build on the positive results of the original project approved in July 2012 and help to sustain the gains achieved to date.
Tohomdet said the new financing for the Polio Eradication Support Project would assist Nigeria to increase and sustain the coverage of oral polio vaccine immunisation, adding that with five more months of zero cases of wild polio virus, the country would have officially interrupted transmission of the disease, which would be a significant milestone toward its eradication.
He also noted that the loan would come from an arm of the World Bank known as the International Development Association.
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