The organisation on its Twitter handle said the devastating disease was at the moment endemic in only two countries, thereby bringing the world one major step closer to achieving the goal of ending polio for good.
Nigeria was said to have received the status after completing documentation which was accepted by the African Regional Certification Commission for polio eradication.
The Director-General of WHO, Dr Margaret Chan, said, “The outstanding commitment and efforts that got Nigeria off the endemic list must continue, to keep Africa polio-free. We must now support the efforts in Pakistan and Afghanistan so they soon join the polio-free world.”
Since 1988 when the World Health Assembly first declared the virus a disease of international concern that must be eradicated by year 2000, the incidence of polio has been reduced by more than 99 percent, according to WHO statistics.
At the time, more than 350,000 children were paralysed every year in more than 125 endemic countries, with Nigeria sharing a chunk of this statistics.
As recent as 2012, Nigeria accounted for more than half of all polio cases worldwide, according to WHO.
The country has however since the last three years not recorded a case of the virus until it was Thursday declared polio free.
Sharing his thoughts on the feat, Tomori, who has been one of the scientists at the forefront of addressing the disease in Nigeria, said: “The country must not rest in terms of vaccinating our children even though we are now free from the wild polio virus. Two other countries – Pakistan and Afghanistan are not free yet.
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