Rotary International, at the investiture ceremony of its 11th District Governor, Dr. Victor C. Onukwugha which held at the International Conference Center, Abuja, on Saturday, 20th July, 2019 presented the ED/CEO National Primary Healthcare Development Agency, (NPHCDA), Dr. Faisal Shuaib with an Award for “Excellence in service to Humanity” in recognition of his sterling contributions and service through activities in developing and implementing strategies on polio outbreak and successful response to the outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease in Nigeria.
The award which was presented by the new District Governor, Dr. Victor C. Onukwugha was given in recognition of Dr. Faisal’s Sterling contributions in the fight against the Ebola outbreak in 2014 and his work on polio eradication.
In his response, the ED/CEO NPHCDA said he accepted the award not for himself alone but also for NPHCDA as a whole and for all those who supported with the fight against Ebola virus outbreak response in 2014 even in the face of various challenges.
He further observed that Rotary International is the first organization to recognize those first responders and frontline workers that coordinated the Ebola response, adding that the award also serves as an encouragement to others both nationally and internationally who fight a similar cause.
While fielding questions from journalists, Dr. Faisal described Rotary International as one of the foremost organizations rendering support in the fight against polio. He stated that the process towards Nigeria being certified polio free will begin in a few months as no wild polio virus has been identified anywhere in Nigeria, in almost three years.
He revealed that N9.8Billion was released by President Muhammadu Buhari to ensure the wild polio virus outbreak in 2016 was rapidly contained. Dr Faisal Shuaib said with the support of the military, NPHCDA and partners are working to provide vaccines and other health services to children in security compromised areas in the North-east.
Dr. Faisal Shuaib before his appointment by President Muhammadu Buhari as Executive Director of NPHCDA in January 2017 was a Senior Programme Officer at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) in Seattle, USA and was charged with the responsibility of developing and implementing strategies on polio outbreak response activities including ensuring certification standard surveillance for Acute Flaccid Paralysis in Africa.
He had served as the Incident Manager/Head of the Nigeria Ebola Emergency Operation Center during the July – October 2014 outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease and was also the Chief Operations Officer/Deputy Incident Manager of the National Polio Emergency Operation Center. It was during his time in this role that the polio eradication team dealt the most critical blow that has brought Nigeria close to eradicating polio.
Under his leadership at the NPHCDA, Dr. Shuaib has led critical public health reforms and innovations that have brought about many notable successes.
A turning point in the journey to rapidly improve routine immunization coverage by Dr. Faisal was the establishment of National and States Emergency Routine Immunization Coordination Centers, NERICC and SERICCs which have recorded significant achievements already. In the last 18 months, the quality of the Routine Immunization program through quarterly conduct of PAPA-LQAS has remarkably improved from only 3% of Lots accepted in Q4 2017 to 46% of Lots accepted in Q2 2019.
In his speech, the guest speaker at the event, a one-time Governor of Rotary District 210 covering West Africa, Prince Julius Adelusi Adeluyi noted that no other organization in the country has supported polio as much as rotary has. He stated that the fight against polio is one of the greatest humanitarian services carried out so far.
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