Relief of the loan will be triggered when Nigeria achieves certain polio program milestones within the next three years.

Gates, who is the Co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said at the end of a two-day visit to Nigeria that his foundation was also contributing another $50 million dollars of its previously announced funding for vaccine, operations and social mobilization in Nigeria’s efforts to eradicate the wild poliovirus.

He noted that Nigeria was the global leading country with new cases of polio stressing that “it will be an incredible milestone to see polio eradicated in Nigeria.”

He expressed confidence that “Nigeria can halt transmission of polio as long as commitments made by states and federal government are realized.” He said that the Gates foundation would continue to provide resources and bring attention to polio eradication efforts in Nigeria and other countries.

The founder of giant computer firm – Microsoft - said that the foundation has also voted various grants to assist government in overcoming the various disease burdens threatening the health of Nigerians.

Such grants according to Gates include a 25 million dollars grant for the AIDS prevention initiatives in Nigeria, 5.3 million dollars grant to support the Carter Centre for works in seven South-Eastern states to integrate malaria and lymphatic filariasis programmes.

Others are a 4.2 million dollars grant to GAIN, an NGO to fortify 80 per cent of Nigeria’s flour with vitamin A and Iron. Already Wild Polio virus from Nigeria has started threatening the health of children in other West African countries.

WHO country representative for Nigeria, Dr Peter Riki said recently that already four cases of wild polio recorded in Ghana and Burkina-Faso were traced to Nigeria but maintained that the WHO was working with the host countries to curtail the spread.

The Nigeria Governor’s Forum has also endorsed an Abuja Commitments to Polio Eradication committing them to provide leadership to polio eradication activities.

“We commit ourselves to improving the operational quality at the LGA levels in our states by chairing quarterly meetings to review, plan and implement polio eradication activities,” they said.