Polio Resurfaces in Nigeria

Polio, practically erased in Nigeria last summer, has become a full-blown menace again after radical leaders barred the vaccine.

Polio, practically erased in Nigeria last summer, has become a full-blown menace again after radical leaders barred the vaccine. The World Health Organization successfully cornered the virus in a few regions of Nigeria, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Egypt in 1988 and all but eradicated the crippling disease that had been paralyzing as many as 1,000 children a day in 125 countries across five continents. The Times of London reports a decision by a coalition of radical Islamic clerics and local politicians, determined to assert their independence from Nigeria’s Christian-dominated federal government, blocked WHO vaccines last summer. They told their people the oral vaccines were part of a sinister Western plot to sterilize African girls and spread the AIDS virus. The disease quickly re-emerged and Nigeria now has the highest number of polio cases in the world, according to reports. U.N. figures show 355 cases of polio in the northern states of Kano, Kaduna, Jigawa and Bauchi.(Source: United Press International, April 2004)