Nigeria: Valuable Lessons From Nigeria's Marathon Effort to Eradicate Polio

[The Conversation Africa] The theme for World Health Day in 1995 was "Target 2000 -- A World Without Polio". I delivered a lecture titled "Polio Eradication Race: Will Nigeria Finish Last?" to mark the occasion. Finishing last seemed likely because in the 1990s Nigeria's routine immunisation rates were in the 30%-40% range for all vaccine preventable diseases. Countries in Southern and East Africa that had eradicated polio had coverage in the 80%-90% range.