Muslim fears hinder polio immunisation in the north

A national immunisation exercise against the polio virus launched in Nigeria last week has been slowed down by the refusal of many people in the country's mainly Muslim north to participate, officials said on Monday. The nationwide campaign was part of a regional effort launched in vulnerable West African countries on Wednesday by international agencies to protect 15 million children against a recent resurgence of polio. The US $10 million campaign aimed to vaccinate every child in Nigeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Niger and Togo. But in northern Nigeria the governments of Zamfara and Kaduna states suspended the exercise over widespread fears that the polio vaccine contained sterilising agents and might be spreading HIV/AIDS. "The two states communicated to the National Programme on Immunisation their decision to suspend the exercise because of fears the vaccines contained some other elements," Austin Oghide, spokesman for the World Health Organisation in Nigera, told IRIN. "They have also set up bodies to investigate the rumours, which we think is good so we can lay these fears to rest," he added. In Kano State - identified by WHO as the source of a strain of the virus recently found in parts of Nigeria and West Africa where the virus had previously been eliminated – the exercise was postponed until January. This was to give health officials time to deal with problems including scarcity of health volunteers and negative perception of immunisation. Though Oghide said it was too early to judge the extent of success of the exercise due to end on Monday, reports from predominantly Muslim communities in northern Nigeria indicate widespread boycott of the exercise fuelled by suspicion it was part of a Western plot to reduce the population of Muslims in Africa. In Plateau State the exercise was rejected in the mainly Muslim communities of Angwan Rimi, Angwan Rogo and Gengere, Patrick Dakum, the top official in charge of health in the state told reporters. But he said the belief the polio vaccine contained anti-fertility or other harmful agents was misconceived. Dakum said the government was anxious to stem the spread of the virus after new cases were recently reported in some parts of the state. Many people in the region trace their suspicion to a controversial drug-testing programme undertaken in Kano city in 1996 by the US drug company Pfizer during a meningitis epidemic. Pfizer treated 100 children with an experimental meningitis drug, Trovan; eleven children died while several others suffered brain damage, became deaf or were partly paralysed. Subsequently more than 50 families affected by the drug trial, who claim they were not informed they were part of an experiment, have embarked on a legal battle against Pfizer for compensation claims in the United States. And the suspicions linger. "We have not forgotten that an American company came here a few years ago to experiment with some drugs on our children, some of whom died while others were disabled," Kano-based technician, Mainasara Abubakar, told IRIN to explain why his children will not be vaccinated. Several Muslim fundamentalist groups have over several years fanned the fear of vaccines through preaching distributed in recorded cassettes and in mosques, expounding claims of a Western plot to reduce the population of Muslims in Africa using immunisation programmes. One of the leading advocates of this suspicion is the self-styled Supreme Council for Shari'ah in Nigeria. Led by physician Datti Ahmed, the group has sought to provide the allegations a scientific explanation and are largely responsible for the decision of the Zamfara and Kaduna State governments to suspend participation in the latest immunisation exercise.