Immunisation resisted in the north

The third in a series of National Immunisation Days against polio organized by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) between 20 and 26 January in Nigeria, encountered some resistance in parts of north, officials said on Sunday. Immunisation officials said they were turned back by some families on the suspicion that the polio vaccines contained the HIV virus and birth control agents, leaving a number of children unvaccinated. "Indeed we had problems in the north, in particular Kano (State)," Battiloi Warritay, UNICEF's spokesman in Nigeria, told IRIN. "There are reports filtering down of a tape that is purportedly done by some religious grouping that the vaccine contains HIV/AIDS virus and fertility control elements. You can imagine what that has further done to the attempts being made here," he added. UNICEF, he said, was continuing to work with religious leaders and traditional rulers to convince "their followers" of the usefulness of immunisation. Figures released by UNICEF show that between 1999 and 2000, the vaccination coverage in Nigeria rose by 21.4 percent to 46.86 million children.