Zamfara State suspends polio immunisation

Zamfara State in northern Nigeria has suspended a polio immunisation exercise that began throughout the country on Friday, citing widespread fears in the predominantly Muslim region the vaccines might be risky to use. The campaign has also been delayed in one other northern state, Kano, due to operational problems despite many new cases of polio being identified. Officials said previous immunisation programmes only reached 30 percent of children in Kano due to organisational shortcomings. "A decision was taken to postpone the Kano exercise until January to sufficiently address all the operational problems," said the official. Zamfara state commissioner for health, Mohammed Tukur, told a meeting of Muslim clerics known as the Council of Ulamas on Thursday that: "The Zamfara State government is worried about the controversy surrounding the immunisation programme. As such it has decided to suspend the exercise." In July, the Supreme Council for Shari'ah in Nigeria (SCSN) and the Kaduna State Council of Imams and Ulama had urged Muslims to resist the polio immunization programme, alleging that vaccines being used were intended to sterilise children and control population growth. The Muslim clerics in northern Nigeria have been telling people that vaccines contained sterilisation agents and the humanimmuno-deficiency virus (HIV) which causes AIDS. Tukur said: "The exercise will continue when it has been ascertained the vaccine does not contain poisonous substances as is being speculated." Nigeria, along with India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, Niger and Somalia are the remaining reservoirs of the polio virus, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). These countries are the only obstacle in the way of the 2005 target set by WHO for the global eradication of the disease. WHO said on Wednesday that a new outbreak originating from Nigeria was spreading to neighbouring countries. Not only has the virus reappeared in Nigeria’s biggest city of Lagos, where it was eradicated two years ago, but strains found in recent times in Ghana, Burkina Faso, Niger and Togo have been "genetically traced" to Nigeria, WHO officials said. Health officials in Nigeria said the main challenge of the current immunisation campaign was to have enough volunteers, vaccines and the logistical capacity to reach more than 35 million children in the country who are under five years. The nationwide campaign is part of a three-day regional effort launched in five West African countries on Wednesday to protect 15 million children from polio. The US $10 million campaign aims to vaccinate every child in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Niger and Togo. The drive by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative started after nearly a dozen children were paralysed by the polio outbreak in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Niger and Togo. WHO said one case had also been reported in Chad and mass vaccinations would be conducted there and in Cameroon in mid-November. A negative reaction to polio immunization has also been noted in neighbouring Niger, especially in Maradi and Zinder near the Nigerian border, but the UN children's Fund (UNICEF) was using radio broadcasts and working with traditional chiefs to disseminate information on vaccination. Polio is an infectious disease caused by a virus. It can strike at any age, but affects mainly children under three who often suffer permanent paralysis. In very severe cases it leads to death.