Medical laboratory tests find polio vaccines safe

Medical laboratory tests on polio vaccines used during a recent immunization exercise in Nigeria have found no human immuno-deficiency virus (HIV) or anti-fertility agents as alleged by some radical Muslim groups, Nigerian officials said. The results of tests at the National Hospital Abuja and the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital in Kaduna State, released late on Monday, declared the polio vaccines fit to be administered on Nigerian children. The hospital said, in a statement, that 12 samples of the oral polio vaccine were subjected to hormone assays on 11 October to determine if they contained anti-fertility agents. Specifically the assays sought to determine the presence of Luteinising Hormone, Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH), Prolactin, Progesterone, Testosterone, Oestradiol (E2) and Human Chrionic Gonadotropin in the vaccines. "From the evidence of the assays carried out that day, it was concluded that there was no evidence that the oral polio vaccine samples contained reproductive hormones," the statement signed by hospital spokesman, Yahaya Ozi Sadiq, said. Witnesses to the tests were officials of the National Programme on Immunisation, representatives of the Kaduna State ministry of health and the World Health Organisation (WHO), the spokesman added. Similarly another test conducted at the university hospital in Zaria by consultant physician, Abdulmumini Rafindadi and experts recruited by the Supreme Council for Sharia in Nigeria (SCSN) – the leading campaigner against the polio vaccines – also found them free of HIV and anti-fertility agents. "The findings of a series of tests which we carried out on the polio vaccine at the instance of SCSN have proved that the vaccine is free of any anti-fertility agents or dangerous disease like HIV/AIDS," Rafindadi told reporters. Polio immunization in Nigeria was suspended in October in three states in the predominantly Muslim north over concerns, propagated by radical Muslim groups such as SCSN, that the exercise was a guise by the West to depopulate Muslim Africa by injecting children with sterilizing agents and the virus that cause AIDS. Subsequently, President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government ordered tests on the vaccines to establish if they were safe. The concerned state governments also ordered their own separate investigations of the vaccine. In Kano State the committee that conducted the tests submitted its report on Monday to governor Ibrahim Shekarau, but the conclusions reached were not made public. Ebrahim Samba, the World Health Organisation (WHO) Africa Regional Director, who paid Shekarau a courtesy visit on Monday, expressed concern that polio reservoirs in Nigeria were re-infecting neighbouring countries and parts of the country formerly declared polio-free. Samba said a recent meeting of European Union countries in Brussels, which discussed the polio situation in Nigeria, said if the immunization programme failed in the country’s north "they will stop funding because there is no point funding when the North is re-infecting other countries." Shekarau told the WHO official that Kano state would not be deterred by the prospects of losing aid. "We are ready to sponsor anybody to go to any length to verify the genuineness of the polio vaccine, but let me tell you that threat does not work in this state," he said. It was unclear if the publication of the test results would end the controversy over the polio vaccine in Nigeria. Last week Daily Trust newspaper had claimed in a report that tests conducted at the National Hospital had confirmed the presence of an anti-fertility agent, oestradiol. The paper said pressure was being mounted on the hospital to conceal the result. These claims were denied by the hospital is a statement on Monday. "It can be explicitly stated that no pressure has been brought to bear on the staff of this hospital with regard to this issue," Graham Chaddwick, chief executive of the hospital said. "The National Hospital stands by the results of its assays, which indicated that there was no evidence that the oral polio vaccine samples contained reproductive hormones."