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Efforts to inoculate children against polio have been hampered in Nigeria's Islamic state of Kano, where Muslims believe the vaccine causes HIV infection.
The state has refused to end its boycott of a mass vaccination programme, charging that the vaccine was a US plot to spread HIV/AIDS and infertility among Muslims.
UN aid agencies have said the door-to-door drive to inoculate 63 million children in 10 west and central African countries was critical to stopping a polio epidemic that was spreading from Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north.
In October last year, Kano, along with the states of Zamfara and Kaduna, blocked a door-to-door effort to administer an oral polio vaccine.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions