The Minister of Health, Onyebuchi Chukwu, says the success of eliminating Guinea worm disease will inspire Nigeria to fight polio and cholera to a halt.

Speaking at a news conference in Atlanta, U.S., on Thursday, Chukwu said Nigeria reported its last case of Guinea worm in November 2008 in Enugu State.

Chukwu and former Head of State, Gen. Yakubu Gowon, were in Atlanta to receive the Carter Center award for guinea worm eradication in Nigeria.

“We have put up a bounty on guinea worm in Nigeria. Anyone who finds any case of guinea worm will get N10,000,” he was quoted as saying by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

“We are trying to maintain surveillance and give incentives to the public to ensure that we do not miss out on any new single case of guinea worm,” he said.

Chukwu thanked the Atlanta-based Carter Center and Abuja-based Yakubu Gowon centre for their leading roles in making guinea worm eradication a success in Nigeria.

“ It is a proud moment for Nigeria and probably after Guinea worm, the next will be polio, because concerted efforts are being made to eradicate it.

“From January to December 2010, we recorded just 20 cases of polio in the country, and that is about 98 per cent reduction in wild polio transmission,” he said.

The former U.S. president praised Nigeria and Niger for becoming the latest African countries to halt the disease.

He said less than 1,800 cases of the illness were reported in 2010, with about 94 per cent of them located in South Sudan, while the rest of the cases were found in Mali, Ethiopia and a recent outbreak in Chad, he said.

According to Carter, Nigeria and Niger have joined 14 other countries that have halted the disease since the eradication campaign began in 1986.

Carter said that his efforts to stamp out diseases had taught him to have confidence in local residents.

“We underestimate the capability of people, if given a chance, to improve their own life.

“I’ve found repeatedly all over the third world that the folks in those villages are just as intelligent, just as hardworking and their family values are just as good as mine, if they’re given a chance,” he said.

Also speaking, Gowon said Carter recruited him to help lead the fight against the disease in Nigeria, adding: “Little did I know what was involved until I went into the field with some of Carter’s workmen.Yes I have known about Guinea worm but not the way I saw it when we went into the field and the remotest part of the country”.