Polio vaccine a US Aids plot

2004-02-23 09:50

Kaduna, Nigeria - A northern Islamic state in Nigeria, at the heart of a spreading Africa polio outbreak, declared on Sunday it would not relent on its boycott of a mass vaccination programme, which it has called a US plot to spread Aids and infertility among Muslims.

"Kano state will not participate in (Monday's) polio campaign. Our team made the discovery of contaminants first, remember," said government spokesperson Sule Ya'u Sule, referring to tests the state says its scientists conducted on the polio vaccine last year.

"Unless we are convinced by our committee (of health experts) that the oral polio vaccines are safe, the exercise remains suspended in Kano state," Sule said.

UN aid agencies insist the door-to-door drive to inoculate 63 million children in 10 west and central African countries, including Nigeria, is critical to stemming a growing polio outbreak spreading out from Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north.

Controversy

Nigerian officials had hoped to resolve the controversy by dispatching a team of scientists, politicians and Islamic religious leaders to observe a battery of tests on the vaccines in South Africa and India earlier this month.

Nigerian health minister Eyitayo Lambo would not divulge the outcome of the visit, which he said ended last week. He gave no explanation as to why the results were not being revealed, saying only that Nigeria's government would forge ahead with the campaign regardless of opposition.

Mukhtar Sirajo, state government spokesperson in Kaduna, another of the northern states where vaccinations had been blocked last year, said his state had decided to allow Monday's emergency immunisation campaign to go ahead. However, Sirajo did not rule out the possibility of the ban being reintroduced if Kaduna decided the results of the latest tests cast new doubts on the safety of the vaccines.

Immunisation efforts "will not be stopped", he said. "But it is only fair that we hear from the verification team, including all the stakeholders."

The boycott by Kano, where 89 cases since January 2003 made it the epicentre of the outbreak, "puts more children at risk from being crippled by polio, not only in Nigeria but also the region", said Gerrit Beger, spokesperson for the United Nations Children's Fund in Abuja.

"We risk reversing our gains. We can't eradicate polio globally if everyone does not take action," Beger said.

Last year, Nigeria accounted for close to half of the more than 700 polio cases documented worldwide.

Kano state officials there say their lab tests carried out late last year found estrogen and other female sex hormones in the polio vaccine - proof, they say, that the vaccines are contaminated.

- AP