MAINTAINED CERTIFICATION STANDARD FOR AFP SURVEILLANCE

AFENET through the National Stop Transmission of Polio (NSTOP) program directly contributed to Nigeria’s certification of wild polio virus (WPV) eradication in August 2020 by achieving and maintaining the Certification Standard for AFP surveillance through deployment of critical technical surveillance workforce in polio high risk states in northern Nigeria. This workforce supported AFP case detection, reporting and investigation focusing on hard-to-reach places, nomadic populations, security compromised areas and other underserved populations.   

The AFENET – NSTOP approach of embedding skilled epidemiologists at the state and LGA levels fosters the improvement of surveillance capacity through mentorship and on-the-job training of local surveillance personnel ensuring sustainability of a functional sensitive surveillance system for polio and other vaccine preventable diseases (VPDs).