Nigeria marks polio-free year (See)

Nigeria marked its first year without a single case of polio on Friday, reaching a milestone many experts had thought would elude it as internal conflict hampered the battle against the crippling disease.

It means the country could come off the list of countries where polio is endemic in a few weeks, once the World Health Organization (WHO) can confirm that the last few samples taken from people in previously affected areas are free of the virus, Reuters says.

This achievement turns up the pressure on Pakistan, where most of the few polio cases in the world remain, to follow suit.

Nigeria’s polio-free period, dating from July 24, 2014, is the longest it has gone without recording a case.

The hope is that next month the entire African continent will have gone a full year without a polio infection, with the last case recorded in Somalia on August 11, 2014.

All this brings tantalisingly closer the prospect that polio will soon become only the second human infectious disease after smallpox to be eradicated.

“It’s an extraordinary achievement. It really shows the value of government leadership and taking ownership of the programme,” said Carol Pandak, the director of Rotary International’s polio program