The United Kingdom on Wednesday said that it invested £1.7 billion (N867.3 billion) since 1995 to help end the wild polio virus in Nigeria.
The Senior Press and Public Affairs Officer of British High Commission, Christopher Ogunmodede, stated that the UK played a major role in Nigeria’s journey to become polio-free.
The World Health Organisation on Tuesday at a virtual session of the 70th Regional Committee announced that Africa was free of polio.
But the UK said it is the second-largest governmental donor in Nigeria after the United States Government in the continuing fight against infectious diseases such as polio.
This is contained in a statement titled, ’UKAID helped Nigeria in its journey to become polio-free as Africa receives wild polio certification.’
It stated, “As a longstanding supporter of the polio programme, the UK has invested £1.7 billion to help end polio since 1995.
“Our most recent pledge was £400 million in 2019, which will help to vaccinate 400 million children a year against the disease in the period 2020-2023.”
The UK also disclosed that its funding to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative was unrestricted, noting that in the last 10 years, the World Health Organisation Nigeria received the equivalent of US $155.5 million (£120 million) of UK’s contribution to support various GPEI projects in the country, with an estimated contribution of $10.2 million just for 2020.
The disease, however, is still endemic in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
