Katsina State has gone nearly a full year without recording a new case of polio, following an extensive immunisation drive that reached more than 2.9 million children, health officials announced to mark World Immunisation Week 2026.
The milestone was disclosed by Heartland Alliance LTD/GTE, which has been leading targeted vaccination efforts in high-risk communities across the state.
Chief Executive Officer of the organisation, Bartholomew Ochonye, described the 11-month streak without a new case as a major breakthrough but cautioned that the progress remains fragile.
“Achieving 11 months without a case in a previously high-risk state is significant,” he said. “But the poliovirus needs just one missed child to survive. Reaching every child is not just preparation, it is the work itself.”
According to Ochonye, the campaign, which began in April 2025, deployed more than 4,000 field workers to conduct door-to-door enumeration across over 2,300 hard-to-reach settlements. The teams covered more than 836,000 households, surpassing initial vaccination targets in the first phase.
Despite the success, the exercise uncovered major gaps in Nigeria’s immunisation system. Over 50,000 children identified during the campaign had never received a single vaccine dose prior to the intervention.
“These are real children in underserved communities, many of whom were never captured in official records,” Ochonye said. “If they remain unreached, the risk persists.”
Health experts say such findings highlight broader systemic challenges, particularly in northern Nigeria, where insecurity, weak data systems, and vaccine hesitancy have historically hindered immunisation coverage.
Although community engagement efforts have reduced vaccine hesitancy by about 40 per cent, obstacles such as limited access to remote areas and fragile health infrastructure continue to pose risks to sustained progress.
The World Health Organization estimates that nearly 20 million children worldwide missed at least one vaccine dose in 2024, with a significant number living in underserved regions, including parts of northern Nigeria.
Nigeria was declared free of wild poliovirus in 2020, but outbreaks of vaccine-derived strains continue to threaten gains, particularly in areas with low routine immunisation coverage.
Ochonye urged government at all levels, alongside development partners, to sustain investment in grassroots vaccination systems, including data collection, community outreach, and monitoring.
“For every generation, vaccines work,” he said. “But those generations are real children in real places. Our responsibility is to find them and ensure they are protected.”
Public health experts warn that without sustained commitment, the progress recorded in Katsina could stall, risking a resurgence of preventable diseases.