Polio Jabs a Us Plot, Claim Nigerian Muslims

A campaign to wipe out polio in Africa is being jeopardised by suspicions among Muslim leaders in Nigeria that the vaccination programme is an American plot to make Muslims infertile.

A boycott of the oral polio vaccine spread to two more Muslim-dominated states in northern Nigeria yesterday, after three states banned the vaccine campaign last year.

Some Muslim families have turned away vaccination teams even in states where the campaign has been allowed.

The rumours are believed to have originated from American websites promoting alternative medicine, and include claims that the vaccine contains anti-fertility drugs, can cause Aids, and is linked to mad cow disease.

The World Health Organisation and Unicef launched a massive polio immunisation drive this week which aims to inoculate 63 million children in 10 African countries against the virus.

WHO fears that the boycott will turn northern Nigeria into a breeding ground for polio, endangering public health across west and central Africa.

In recent months, an outbreak of polio in Kano, one of the Nigerian states which suspended immunisation, has spread the disease to seven neighbouring African countries where it had previously been eradicated.

Unicef's spokesman, Gerrit Beger, said: "Nigeria is the weakest link in the global campaign to stop the transmission of the polio virus.

"We are using the same vaccine in Nigeria that we use everywhere else in the world.

"It is saddening because this is a lost opportunity for children to be immunised. Any delay in immunisation is a threat to the health of children in Nigeria.

He said that the number of children contracting the virus has been reduced from 350,000 worldwide in 1988 to less than 1,000 last year.

But he warned: "By further delaying immunisation we risk reversing our gains."

Last August, the governor of Kano state suspended the polio campaign and set up a committee to investigate the infertility claims. In January the committee said they had found traces of the female hormone oestrogen that could affect fertility. Tests elsewhere have not found hormone contamination and experts insist the vaccine is safe.

Nigeria's Niger state allowed the vaccinations to start on Monday, but ordered them stopped at the end of the day.

A spokesman, Mahmud Abdullahi said: "Polio immunisation has become controversial. So to be on the safe side, the Niger state government has decided to suspend polio immunisation until we're reassured it's safe."

In Kaduna state, where the vaccine was banned last year, officials relented on Monday and allowed the programme to go ahead. Health workers chalked ticks on the houses of accepting families, and the letter R on the walls of those who refused.

Nigeria's federal government sent politicians, scientists and religious leaders abroad this month to observe how the vaccine is produced and tested. The results of this investigation are due to be published later this week.

Muslims in Nigeria have been wary of medical programmes after 1996 when families in Kano state accused the drug firm Pfizer of using an experimental meningitis treatment on patients without fully informing them of the risks.