E-MAIL THIS LINK
To: 

Nigeria Region Will Resume Polio Vaccines
A northern Nigerian region that banned polio vaccinations last year citing safety concerns will resume them in the next few days, the World Health Organization said Wednesday amid heightened fears about the international spread of the crippling disease. Ibrahim Shekarau, governor of the mostly Muslim Nigerian state of Kano, accepted in May that the oral polio vaccine is safe and effective, said Dr. David Heymann, who is overseeing WHO's effort to eradicate the disease. The state is now receiving WHO assistance and is preparing to resume vaccinations in the next few days, Heymann said. Shekarau halted the vaccinations in September 2003 after goofy claims by some nut-ball Islamic leaders that the vaccines were part of a U.S.-led plot to spread infertility and AIDS among gullible African Muslims. Nigerian federal officials and the United Nations deny the ludicrous claims. "To date, the ongoing suspension of immunization campaigns in Kano has put thousands of children in African countries at risk of polio paralysis," said WHO director general Lee Jong-wook. "The suspension has also resulted in the re-emergence of polio in countries which had been polio free." Countries across the continent are increasingly scared to death concerned about the rate at which the disease is spreading internationally from northern Nigeria since immunization was suspended in September 2003. Ten previously polio-free countries have now been reinfected.

The U.N. health agency warned last week that Africa is on the brink of the biggest polio epidemic in years, with the disease hitting Nigeria hard and re-emerging in Sudan's war-ravaged Darfur region. "Kano state in Nigeria is now the only polio-endemic area where immunization is not taking place," Heymann said. He said the country has enough vaccine but faces an increased urgency to distribute it since the rainy season is about the begin, which would improve conditions for the disease to spread. Nigeria has reported 259 polio cases this year, compared with 56 in the same period in 2003. The total number of polio cases globally has reached 339 so far this year, almost double the number for the same period last year.
All preventable.

Posted by: Steve White 2004-07-01
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=36893