Nigerian vaccine stoush heads to court

A Nigerian human rights body has filed a suit against an Islamic organisation over its opposition to the oral polio vaccine in the mainly Muslim north of the country.

A Nigerian human rights body has filed a suit against an Islamic organisation over its opposition to the oral polio vaccine in the mainly Muslim north of the country.The Civil Rights Congress (CRC) has filed the suit at the Kaduna High Court, asking the court to restrain the Supreme Council of Sharia in Nigeria (SCSN) from opposing the use of the vaccine.The council claims that the vaccine is unsafe for human consumption.”We have gone to court to dismiss this spurious claim by the sharia council that the vaccine is unsafe, and to let the whole world know that the right of the child to good health is being denied,” CRC’s General Secretary Nasir Abbas said. He says the court has fixed April 5 for the hearing.(Source: AFP, Abc Health News, March 2004)