Final polio vaccinations launched despite religious opposition

Mali’s Ministry of Health and the UN children's fund UNICEF launched a third and final phase of polio immunisation on Friday, which aims to reach 3.6 million children regardless of recent opposition from religious leaders. The three day programme seeks to inoculate all children five years and under. In West Africa, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Niger and Nigeria are all taking part in the final phase of a global campaign organised by the World Health Organisation, UNICEF, governments and other partners. On 10 May, the Malian courts sentenced five leaders of a Muslim sect to terms of up to two years in jail for blocking a previous round of polio immunisation in the eastern village of Tandio, close to the town of Yorosso near the border with Burkina Faso. The five effectively blocked polio immunisations in April on religious grounds telling health workers that: "It is God that gives disease and God that takes it away". Local newspapers reported that members of the sect, which does not recognise any authority other than the authority of God, threatened health workers with death if they so much as touched a child in the village. The health workers were forced to abandon the planned vaccination of children in Tandio, which has approximately 2,000 residents. Prosecuting lawyers were pleased with the court ruling. "One needs such acts to enforce respect for the authority of the state," said lawyer Hamidou Bocoum. With the leaders of the sect in prison, immunisers are hopeful that villagers will accept the vaccinations this time around. However, at a press conference on Thursday, the head of the immunisation programme Nouhoun Kone advised his team to show tact and never resort to force to make people accept a vaccination. WHO originally hoped to see polio eradicated by the end of 2004. But the campaign faltered, most notably in Nigeria where northern Muslim clerics blocked polio immunisation for tens of thousands of children. The clerics claimed that the vaccine could cause infertility and was part of a western plot to stop Muslims having children. The last ban, in Kano state, was lifted in July 2004. However, in April WHO reported that while the number of new polio cases recorded in Nigeria had declined sharply in 2005, the country still accounts for more than half of all new cases of the disease recorded worldwide. Polio is a potentially life threatening virus that usually strikes in childhood and commonly leaves victims severely disabled or consigned to a life on crutches or in a wheelchair.