WEST AFRICA: WHO calls meeting over fresh polio cases in Benin, Cameroon

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

LAGOS, 12 Jan 2004 (IRIN) - Benin and Cameroon, previously certified free of polio virus, have been re-infected by strains from neighbouring Nigeria, prompting the World Health Organization (WHO) to call an urgent meeting in Geneva on 15 January of health ministers of polio-affected countries.

WHO said in a statement on Friday that ministers of health from Nigeria, Cameroon, Benin, Pakistan, India and Egypt would meet with international partners from WHO, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Rotary International and the U.S. Centres for Disease Control.

The objective would be “to immediately intensify efforts to stop poliovirus transmission globally by the end of 2004.”

WHO said on Friday two new polio cases had recently been detected in Benin and Cameroon.

There is growing concern that widespread resistance to polio immunisation in the predominantly Muslim north of Nigeria is leading to the reinfection of neighbouring countries and is seriously hindering efforts to eradicate the disease globally.

Some radical Islamic preachers alleged last year that the polio vaccine being used in Nigeria contained the virus that causes AIDS and anti-fertility agents. They said the vaccines had been deliberately contaminated as part of a Western conspiracy to lower the Muslim population in Nigeria.

This led to widespread popular resistance to immunisation. As a result, three northern states, Kano, Kaduna and Zamfara, suspended their polio vaccination programmes in October pending the outcome of government investigations into the vaccines.

Nigeria's federal government has cleared the vaccines as safe following a series of random tests.

The three northern states which suspended polio immunisation have yet to publish the results of their own testing.

However, Alhassan Bichi, a pharmacist, who chaired the Kano State investigation, told the House of Representatives Committee on Health that tests had revealed the presence of oestrogen, which he said was an anti-fertility agent. “All we ask for is good vaccines we can swear to our people is genuine,” he told IRIN.

Last week, Health Minister Eyitayo Lambo undertook “advocacy visits” to the three states that suspended polio immunisation to end the impasse.

Kano State Governor Ibrahim Shekerau cautiously told Lambo he was concerned for the welfare of his people. But he gave the health minister an assurance he was willing to work with the federal government because he believed it cared for the welfare of all Nigerians.

Lambo received a warmer reception in Katsina State where Governor Umaru Musa Uar’Adua declared “there was no substantial and empirical evidence to prove that the vaccine is not safe.” Uar'adua pledged to mobilise government agencies and community leaders to work for the eradication of polio.

A WHO official in Lagos told IRIN that the organisation’s primary concern was to ensure that confidence in the immunisation process is sustained. Such confidence, he said, was necessary if the target of eliminating polio worldwide by 2005 was to be met.

“In Nigeria we can see the damage that the waning of confidence in a section of country has done,” he said. “In 2003 Nigeria recorded about 300 cases of polio, overtaking India as the country with the worst polio record globally.”

[ENDS]