Nigeria is strengthening the data systems used to guide polio vaccination and disease surveillance, with 62 data and information management officers taking part in a two-week training programme in Akwanga, Nasarawa State.
The participants come from the country’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, according to the World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa. The programme is designed to help health teams identify communities where children may have been missed during vaccination campaigns and improve the speed and quality of follow-up.
Nigeria and the WHO African Region were certified free of wild poliovirus in August 2020 after more than four years without detection of wild poliovirus type 1. However, circulating variant polioviruses remain a concern, and Nigeria is continuing efforts to interrupt transmission of cVPV2 and cVPV3 while sustaining strong surveillance.
The training covers surveillance, routine immunization reporting, supplementary immunization activities, data-quality checks, settlement mapping and location-based analysis. Participants are also being trained to use DHIS2, R programming and QGIS to analyse trends, update dashboards and identify areas that may need additional vaccination support.
WHO says each participant is expected to return to their duty station with a 90-day action plan. The intended outcomes include faster and more complete reporting, stronger data quality, updated settlement maps and earlier identification of communities that require additional vaccination support.
The initiative supports government-led immunization and primary-health-care priorities and forms part of wider efforts to use better information for faster public-health action. For KROONIS, the key significance is that Nigeria’s polio response is increasingly dependent not only on vaccine supply and field operations, but also on the quality and speed of the underlying data used to find children who might otherwise be missed.
**Source:** World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa, 4 September 2026.