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Nigerian State Lifts Polio Vaccine Ban - Friday, May 28, 2004 |
Nigeria's predominantly Muslim state of Kano has ended its eight-month ban on polio vaccinations, declaring that samples of new vaccines were "found safe," a local official said yesterday (Oloche Samuel, Associated Press, May 27). The ban led to outbreaks of polio in nine African countries previously declared polio-free (Agence France-Presse, May 27).
Kano government spokesman Sule Ya'u Sule said the state would import new drugs from Indonesia, a majority Muslim country, and renew participation in the World Health Organization's polio immunization drive.
"Importation of the safe vaccines will be any time from now," Sule told AP. "I cannot give you an exact date at this moment but we will soon begin immunization."
Kano officials had suspended the campaign last September, saying local scientists identified traces of infertility drugs in U.S.-made vaccines (Samuel, AP). Radical Islamic clerics seized on the claims and said the drugs were part of a Western plot to kill off Muslim populations.
U.N. officials dismissed the allegation (AFP).
Nigerian Health Minister Eyitayo Lambo said yesterday that Kano was being included in plans for a U.N.-backed immunization drive to eradicate polio.
"Nigeria will shock all skeptics by halting the transmission of wild polio virus before the end of the year" now that "Kano is coming on board," he told a government-owned radio station, adding that Nigeria accounts for about 50 percent of the world's polio cases.
The $3 billion, 16-year WHO polio eradication campaign has recorded enormous progress in fighting the crippling disease, reducing cases from 350,000 in 1988 to fewer than 1,000 last year. Many experts see Kano as the last hurdle to stamping out the illness.
Bruce Aylward, coordinator of the Geneva-based WHO initiative, called Kano's decision "one of the most significant developments" in the anti-polio campaign, but he cautioned that meeting the target of eradication by the end of 2004 would be a "tremendous challenge" because some Africans had lost confidence in the vaccines.
"Community confidence has been terribly compromised and this has to be rebuilt right across from Chad to Senegal," he said (Samuel, AP).
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