The wild polio virus is being widely spread in 22 local government areas of Jigawa state in north Nigeria bordering the Republic of Niger, a state healthcare official said on Monday.

Hajia Hajara Nagado, commissioner for health of Jigawa State, made the remarks at a workshop on "Child Survival Interventions" in the state capital Dutse organized by the Bauchi Zonal Office of United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

She said 117 cases had been confirmed, adding that the virus was prevalent in 54 out of the 589 wards as at the end of August.

The situation, she said, placed Jigawa as the third most endemic state after Kano and Katsina.

Nagado said it was necessary for the state to take advantage of the ongoing reform in the health sector to reverse the trend.

The health ministry, she said, was collaborating with the National Program on Immunization, the World Health Organization ( WHO), UNICEF, the British Department for International Development and other partners to curb the spread.

Since the beginning of this year, Nigeria has spent 30 million U.S. dollars on polio vaccine procurement, said Edugie Abebe, interim national coordinator of Nigeria' National Program on Immunization (NPI) .

She said Nigeria, the most populous country in African with a population of over 140 million, was worse hit by poliomyelitis, recording more than 80 percent of the cases in the world.

The other countries in the world with a high incidence of the disease are India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, she added.

Source: Xinhua