HEALTH-NIGERIA: A Setback for Polio

By Toye Olori Reprint | | Print |

Toye Olori

LAGOS, Aug 8 2003 (IPS) - A claim by an Islamic group that polio vaccines, being administered on children, contain anti-fertility agents poses serious setback for government’s efforts to eradiate the disease by the end of the year, according to health officials.

Ibrahim Datti Ahmed, leader of the Supreme Council for Shariah in Nigeria, told journalists in the northern city of Kaduna recently that the United States, through the World Health Organisation (WHO), has been seeking to reduce the populations of Third World and Muslim countries since 1975.

”Recent declassified U.S. documents showed that the World Health Organisation had introduced Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG), a naturally occurring hormone essential for maintaining pregnancy in women, through massive anti-tetanus health campaigns in Nigeria, Tanzania, Nicaragua, Mexico and the Philippines,” Ahmed alleged.

”The WHO also has been actively involved for more than 20 years in the development of anti-fertility vaccines using HCG tied to tetanus toxoid as a carrier,” he added.

Ahmed called for suspension of the use of oral polio vaccine until it is fully investigated by competent authorities and found to be safe.

”We are not opposed to any programme for the eradiation of all childhood and other communicable diseases including polio, but the council harbours strong reservation on the safety of our population,” he said.

Ahmed urged donor agencies also to fight ”malaria, measles, meningitis, cholera and typhoid fever”, which kill thousands of Nigerians every year, with the same vigour as they tackle polio.

But Tom Mshindi, Unicef’s Chief Communications officer in Nigeria, has refuted the Islamic group’s allegation, describing it as a plan by a small group of people to destroy the achievement of the government towards total eradication of polio.

”The claim is without basis. It is unfortunate,” Mshindi said.

The UN Children’s Fund (Unicef), he said, was ready to work with any agency or group wishing to carry out a test on the vaccine.

"The negative opinion was held by a small group of people who needed to be reached and as such, state radio and television stations would be used to reach them," he said.

Unicef executive director, Carol Bellamy recently visited Kaduna where she enlisted the support of the 19 northern governors in the fight against polio.

In the past four years, the Nigerian government spent about 13.34 billion naira (133.4 million U.S. dollars) on National Programme on Immunisation (NPI) that aims at halting the spread of the six child killer diseases – polio, measles, tetanus, whooping cough, tuberculosis and diphtheria – through routine immunisation. Another 4.7 billion naira (47 million U.S. dollars) has been provided in the 2003 budget for the programme.

The money is needed to check the spread of the six diseases. Between January and July last year, 123 cases of polio were recorded in 13 northern states, while one case was registered in the southern state of Edo.

With 202 cases of polio recorded by the end of 2002 and 75 other cases documented, so far, this year, Nigeri is one of the remaining three countries – along with India and Pakistan – with a reservoir of wild polio virus, according to Unicef.

Polio is an infectious viral disease which affects the central nervous system and in most cases leads to paralysis, attacking children mostly. But immunisation, using either oral or injected vaccines, has proved highly effective in providing lasting immunity.

Health officials say the virus still persists in Nigeria because of people’s tenacity to traditional beliefs as well as the opinion held by some of the leaders on polio vaccine. The virus is excreted in the faeces of infected persons, which makes it very common in unhygienic environments and among individuals who have not acquired immunity during infancy.

NPI officials blame the continued existence of wild polio virus on the influx of Nigerians in and out of major cities, especially women who travel with children below the age of five on such journeys. Lack of adequate information, sensitisation and low routine immunisation also make the fight against polio difficult.

NPI’s Dare Awosika believes the programme has not failed. She says government efforts to eradicate childhood diseases have resulted in a substantial increase in the number of immunised children in Nigeria.

Potent oral preventive vaccines, she says, have been administered to children below the age of five, increasing the number of children immunised from 21.9 million in Nov. 1996 to 35.8 million in Nov. 2002.

Awosika says her agency was ready to intensify efforts to meet the 2003 deadline and certify Nigeria, with a population of 120 million, as polio free by 2005