Dear colleagues,
I am pleased to share the latest edition of the Immunization for Resilience Newsletter, featuring Nigeria’s polio elimination challenge and the unfinished business of interrupting cVDPV2 transmission.
Field reality
Mid-morning at the Sokoto–Zamfara border. A vaccination team finds half the compounds locked, families gone for seasonal migration. Three children remain. One has an ink mark on her thumb but no card. The mother cannot recall which vaccine or when. Forty kilometers away, an environmental sample has just tested positive for cVDPV2.
This is the ground reality in Nigeria, which reported 98 of 297 global cVDPV2 cases in 2024 (about one third of the global burden).
In my latest field analysis
✅ Why Nigeria remains the largest cVDPV2 contributor despite interrupting wild poliovirus in 2020
✅ A ~57% decline in global cVDPV2 cases since nOPV2 roll-out
✅ What the data shows: IPV2 56% (2024, WUENIC), 57% of settlements missed in parts of the North during November 2024 SIAs, and zero-dose clustering where transmission is most active
✅ Lake Chad Basin dynamics: insecurity, porous borders, and cross-border transmission corridors
✅ Five execution-dependent strategies to bend the curve.
Full analysis with surveillance trends and operational recommendations:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/nigerias-polio-challenge-unfinished-business-tambe-17qme
I have attached the PDF version for convenience.
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Extra information
The Immunization for Resilience Newsletter Research (IRNR) Group launched on 05 Nov 2025. Purpose: convert the newsletter pipeline and priority global health issues into peer-reviewed publications, research products, and policy briefs.
First publication: Closing the hepatitis B birth-dose gap in Cameroon: Global evidence and policy imperatives.
DOI: https://lnkd.in/egd-VSmm
Two additional manuscripts are in the pipeline.
Thank you for your support and collaboration.
Tambe Elvis Akem
Medical Field Epidemiologist | Health & Immunization Specialist | Advocate for Equity in Health
@ImmunizationForResilienceNewsletter / Research Group
Email: [email protected]
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tambe-elvis-akem