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Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo kicked off a massive, synchronised polio campaign at the weekend, by immunising the baby daughter of the state governor whose vaccination ban helped the crippling disease spread across West Africa.
As current president of the African Union, Obasanjo on Saturday launched the new drive to immunise 80 million children in 23 countries from the disease, which can cause paralysis and leaves them consigned to wheelchairs or crutches.
His first patient was one-year-old Zaina, daughter of Kano state governor, Ibrahim Shekaru,
“It is our resolve that all children aged between 1 and 59 months are immunized against this disease,” Obasanjo said. “Let us receive our vaccination teams in our homes, at school and in public places.”
Figures from the World Health Organisation (WHO) show Nigeria currently accounts for more than 80 percent of all cases of polio worldwide.
Shekaru, leader of the mainly Muslim state of Kano, last year outlawed the polio vaccines for 10 months after radical Islamic preachers branded them part of a Western, Christian plot to reduce Nigeria's Muslim population by making them infertile and infecting them with cancer.
The ban helped polio spread around Nigeria and ripple across the wider region, derailing international health experts' plans to eradicate the viral disease by the end of 2004.
Five times as many children in the region were struck with polio in the first half of 2004 compared with the same period last year.
Strains of the virus traced to Nigeria infected children in 12 west and central African countries previously declared polio-free and experts warned the region was on the brink of the largest epidemic in recent years.
The latest push to simultaneously vaccinate children around the continent aims to reach 80 million children between 8 and 12 October in 23 countries from Benin to Togo.
"(This is) the largest-ever, cross-border polio campaign in history," the Global Polio Eradication Initiative said in a statement.
The World Health Organisation said volunteer health workers would comb the countries, going door-to-door, house-to-house, village-to-village, on foot, by car, and by boat to reach every single child under the age of five.
Further immunisation rounds will follow in November and throughout 2005.
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
