Polio immunisation to remain suspended, says Kano State

Authorities in northern Nigeria’s Kano State said on Sunday the suspension of polio immunisation in the state would remain in force until their fears about the vaccines used were adequately addressed. Reacting to a declaration signed on Thursday by Nigeria’s Minister of Health Eyitayo Lambo, pledging to immunise all Nigerian children against polio, Kano State spokesman Sule Yau Sule said vaccination could only resume in the state when authorities were convinced that the vaccines were safe. Lambo's pledge came during a World Health Organization (WHO) meeting called to map out how to eradicate the disease, still endemic in six countries, by the end of 2004. Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Niger and Nigeria are the world's six remaining polio reservoirs. But a resurgence of cases in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Chad, which hitherto had been certified polio-free by WHO, has threaten the eradication drive and prompted the health body to hold the emergency meeting. People in the three West African states have been re-infected from Nigeria which, according to a senior official, was the greatest obstacle to eliminating the disease, whose best-known side-effect is paralysis of the legs. "Nigeria is the country that we are concerned about", David Haymann, the representative of WHO's director general for polio eradication, told IRIN on Friday from Geneva. Kano State was among three northern states that halted polio immunisation in October following allegations by Islamic leaders that the vaccine to be administered to thousands of children was contaminated with HIV and anti-fertility agents. They say the immunisation was part of a western plot to reduce the Muslim population in Nigeria, Africa's most populous country. Kano State officials subsequently ordered an investigation. They later announced that their own independent tests revealed the presence of oestrogen, which they said was an anti-fertility hormone. The two other states, Zamfara and Kaduna, have not released the results of their investigations. “We conducted our own tests which found certain agents which were not supposed to be in the vaccine,” Sule told IRIN. He said the state can only resume polio vaccination “if federal government health officials are able to convince us that our concerns have been adequately addressed.” President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government also ordered random tests of the vaccines at leading hospitals in Nigeria and a South African laboratory, which declared the vaccine safe and free of any contaminants. Sule said Kano health officials were now in discussions with federal government health officials in a bid to resolve their differences over the contents of the polio vaccines. WHO has consistently denied claims that the vaccines contained harmful elements and has expressed concern that the polio virus is resurfacing in neighbouring countries where it had been previously eradicated. Strains of the virus recently found in Benin, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Niger and Ghana have all been traced back to Nigeria, the world body has said. Haymann said Nigeria's health minister assured the meeting that his governmnent would succeed in vaccinating the children, but he gave no further details. Asked what WHO would do if the northern states maintained their stance, Haymann said: "WHO has no authority over Nigeria", meaning that there was nothing the organisation could do to force vaccination. WHO's 2004 plan centers aroud vaccinating some 250 million children in the six endemic countries, and in those where the disease has re-occurred, at least thrice during the year.