Nigeria postpones programme of polio immunisation
Lagos Abiodun Raufu
Nigeria has postponed its nationwide poliomyelitis
immunisation programme for several months, after criticism
by the country’s Muslim population of the safety of the
vaccines being given to children. The move is ostensibly to
allow time to resolve the controversy surrounding the
immunisation exercise.
According to the press release signed by Wosilat Giwa, the
director of communications and essential services of the
national programme on immunisation, the exercise scheduled
to have taken place from 22 to 25 May 2004, has been
postponed until September 2004.
Although no reason was given for the postponement, it is
believed that the action was taken because some states in
the largely Muslim northern part of the country have refused
to take part in the exercise.
"Over the last several months, concerns had been expressed
by some groups of individuals and states on the safety of
the oral polio vaccine, while some states suspended polio
immunisation," said Stella Obasanjo, wife of Nigeria’s
President Olusegun Obasanjo; she has been at the forefront
of the campaign for polio immunisation.
The controversy over the vaccines was sparked when the
Supreme Council for Sharia, one of the Muslim organisations
in northern Nigeria asked the government to suspend the
immunisation programme, claiming it had evidence to show
that the vaccine contains substances that affect fertility.
The secretary general of the organisation, Dr Ibrahim Datti
Ahmed, said that investigations by his organisation found
that recently declassified US documents show that the United
States had had a policy since 1975 of promoting the
depopulation of African and Muslim countries.
He claimed that the documents showed that a hormone had been
added to vaccines in anti-tetanus health campaigns in
Nigeria, Tanzania, the Philippines, Nicaragua, and Mexico.
He said: "The council harbours strong reservations on the
safety of our population not least because of our recent
experience in the Pfizer scandal, when our people were used
as guinea pigs with the approval of the federal ministry of
health and the approval of all the relevant UN agencies"
(BMJ 2003;326:899).
Parents in northern parts of the country, influenced by some
Muslim leaders and scholars, refused to allow their children
to be vaccinated.
But Dr Abba Zakari, director of the primary healthcare
programme in Jigawa state (one of several states in northern
Nigeria with a high incidence of wild polio), said: "Nigeria
is one of eight countries where polio immunisation is in
danger of failing because of widespread refusals in the
northern region."
Attempts by the Nigerian government to examine the safety of
the vaccines in Nigeria, South Africa, and India ended in
confusion, however, as some Muslim leaders refused to accept
the results, claiming that they could not trust the
government on this issue.
A few governors in some northern states have even said that
they would prefer to import their own vaccines from Muslim
countries to ensure the safety of their people.