Polio campaign in Nigeria
The
New Scientist has an update on the current Polio Vaccine kurfuffle in Nigeria:
The original problem:
bq. Muslim clerics claimed the vaccine was part of a Western plot to depopulate Africa. Subsequent tests by Nigerian experts gave the vaccine the all-clear and two other states that had opted out resumed the campaign. But Kano did not reinstate the programme.
Their solution:
bq. "Our search for safe and uncontaminated oral polio vaccine has yielded results because our medical team now in Indonesia has found a reliable source for the vaccines," said Kano State spokesman Sule Ya'u Sule.
bq. "We are not importing from Indonesia because it is a Muslim country, but because the vaccines they are producing contain safe levels of estrogen, which can be harmful to young girls," Sule told Reuters.
How many cases of Polio have been found?
bq. Corkum told New Scientist that Nigeria now has the highest number of polio cases in the world. The latest figures, for the year to 12 May, show that of 169 cases worldwide, 119 of these were in Nigeria.
An earlier
New Scientist article goes into more detail on the clerics claims:
bq. Some Islamic clerics suggested the vaccine is part of a Western plot to depopulate Africa.
To remember what Polio can do (a wretched form of whole-body paralysis), try to imagine living inside this
Iron Lung for the rest of your life and remember that the Islamic Clerics are damning their own children to this kind of existence because of their own purblind ignorance...
Posted by DaveH at May 18, 2004 2:04 PM
