E-DRUG: Nigerian state promises to end polio vaccine boycott
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[Vaccination is politics! Anyway, thanks to polio vaccine from
muslim-Indonesia the Northern States of Nigeria are now resuming their polio
vaccination programme. Let's hope we can get this virus eradicated with an
essential drug: polio vaccine. Copied as fair use. WB]
http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol363/iss9424/full/llan.363.9424.news.2979
5.1
Nigerian state promises to end polio vaccine boycott
After an 8-month standoff with the global health community, the
northern Nigerian state of Kano has promised to end its boycott of the
poliovirus vaccine and participate in international efforts to interrupt
disease transmission by the end of this year.
Kano government spokesman Sule Ya'u Sule said the authorities were
satisfied that vaccine samples from fellow-Muslim Indonesia were "safe",
although he could not give a precise date for the resumption of the
immunisation campaign.
Kano and two other neighbouring Islamic states suspended immunisation
last September, claiming that traces of oestrogen and progesterone had
been detected in vaccine samples. In a region characterised by poor
health-care provision, deep-rooted mistrust of central government, and
suspicion of western influence, rumours ran rife that it was part of a
US plot to spread infertility--and even HIV/AIDS--among Muslim women.
Nigerian health minister Eyitayo Lambo said there would be a localised
catch-up campaign in Kano, probably in June and July, followed by a
massive nationwide effort in September, October, and November, aimed at
halting the disease's spread by the end of 2004.
"Nigeria will shock all sceptics by halting the transmission of wild
poliovirus before the end of the year", a confident Lambo told
state-owned Radio Nigeria on May 27. "We have mapped it out . . . We
will just move forward."
According to WHO statistics, up to the week ending May 25, Nigeria
accounted for 145 of the 201 confirmed cases this year. India, which had
1600 cases in 2002, reported just eight cases thanks to sweeping
immunisation campaigns.
WHO and UNICEF hailed Kano's decision. But the welcome was tinged with
caution pending the actual restart of mass vaccinations and the need to
restore community confidence following a sustained campaign of mistrust
sown by local radical Islamic clerics.
The resurgence of polio in northern Nigeria prompted a meeting of
African health ministers at the World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva
last month to adopt an emergency plan to immunise 74 million children in
21 nations, stretching from Senegal in the west to Chad in central
Africa.
Botswana--which was declared polio free in 1991 and lies 1300 km
southeast of the Nigerian epicentre--had an emergency vaccination
campaign of nearly 200 000 under-5s from May 10-14, after finding a
7-year-old boy with symptoms of the Nigerian poliovirus strain.
A WHO secretariat report to the WHA costed the international
immunisation response at more than US$20 million. It warned that the
polio upsurge in Nigeria was jeopardising the $3 billion global
campaign, which has reduced cases of the disease from 350 000 in 1988 to
fewer than 1000 last year.
The report said that four of the six countries where polio is
considered endemic --Egypt, Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan--were on
schedule to stop transmission before the end of the year.
"For the first time in history more countries recorded imported cases
than were endemic for the disease", said the secretariat report, stating
that poliovirus from Nigeria reinfected Benin, Burkino Faso, Cameroon,
Central African Republic, Chad, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, and part of
Niger, as well as Nigerian states previously free of polio such as the
economic hub of Lagos.
Despite the increasing health toll, Kano and the neighbouring northern
states of Kaduna and Zamfara refused to join in mass immunisation
campaigns in February, citing ongoing safety concerns.
President Olusegun Obasanjo subsequently declared that an international
study, observed by Nigerian scientists, Muslim leaders, and government
officials, had found the vaccines "categorically" safe.
Kaduna and Zamfara relaxed their opposition-- with high-profile clinic
visits from President Obasanjo, who administered vaccines to the
children of erstwhile sceptics. But Kano delayed, citing the need for
more detailed arrangements for imports from Indonesian suppliers.
Muslims in Nigeria's north have been wary of vaccine campaigns since
1996, when families in Kano state accused New York-based Pfizer Inc of
using an experimental meningitis drug without fully informing people of
the risks.
Clare Kapp
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