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KonkNaija Media | May 2, 2016

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The Polio Controversy in Northern Nigeria

The Polio Controversy in Northern Nigeria

| On 03, Jun 2013

Back in 2003 The president of the Supreme Council on Sharia in Nigeria, DR Ibrahim Ahmed Datti said that the recent threat by the President of Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) to withdraw his licence to practice as medical doctor was very irresponsible and foolish because the NMA is not in charge of medical practice in Nigeria.

Dr Datti who is one of the old members of the association received the threat recently following his call to stop the polio immunisation programme in Northern states as a result of suspected contamination of the vaccine with anti-fertility steroid.

in 2003, Ahmad said: “The council (SCSN) harboured 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 that of all the relevant United Nation agencies.”

His claims led to the suspension of the polio campaign. Other Muslim clerics elsewhere like in India and Pakistan followed Ahmad’s lead.

In recent times fears of a polio pandemic have raised concerns about the influence and impact Ibrahim Ahmed Datti has had on the long struggle to eradicate polio in Nigeria.

His call for an end to the polio immunization campaign touched a nerve and spread to other Muslim religious leaders in Nigeria, causing the vaccination process to slow down and incidences of the disease to pick From Nigeria, this dual phenomenon of conspiracy theory and re-appearance of the disease then expanded to Muslims internationally.  So closely connected have Islam and polio become that the Muslim-only pilgrimage to Mecca became a major mechanism of transmitting the disease to faraway places like Indonesia.

By now, Ahmed’s paranoia has sent the new wave of polio from Nigeria to Muslim populations in at least 17 other African countries and 6 Asian countries:

Africa: Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Central African Republic, Egypt, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Somalia, Sudan, and Togo.

Asia: Afghanistan, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen.

According to a recent newscast from the World health organisation

“Three countries remain endemic for indigenous transmission of wild poliovirus: Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan”

In 2012, Nigeria recorded 122 cases - over half of the global total that year.

IRIN spoke to residents, imams and health workers in Kano State to discuss the roots of ongoing vaccine suspicion.

Geo-politics

Sheikh Nasir Muhammed Nasir, imam of Fagge Juma’at Mosque, the largest in Kano, is an advocate of polio immunization.

“There is nothing wrong with the polio vaccine. The major reason why people reject it is the deep-seated suspicion they harbour against the West, particularly the United States due to its foreign policies in the Muslim world, especially the war in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said.

“The US invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan – which caused deaths and destruction – is seen by many Muslims here as a war on their brethren. They wonder how the same countries responsible for this colossal carnage can now turn and save lives elsewhere. To them, it doesn’t make any sense that you offer to save my children from a crippling disease yet are killing my brothers,” said Nasir.

Mamman Nababa, a father of three in Kano, said: “I can’t understand how the West will spend millions of dollars in providing medication against polio for our children while they systematically killed 500,000 Muslim children in Iraq by imposing an embargo that denied them access to basic medicines.

“They are doing the same in Iran, where they imposed sanctions that make drugs scarce. It doesn’t make sense to kill my brother’s child by denying him life-saving drugs and then expect me to believe that you want to save my child from polio for free.”

In other news;

HEALTH ministers and delegates from the 194 World Health Organisation (WHO) member-states, including Nigeria, at the 66th World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva, Switzerland,  endorsed the new Polio Eradication and Endgame Strategic Plan 2013-2018 to secure a lasting polio-free world. They urged full implementation and financing of the plan.

The ministers, attending the WHA, acknowledged the progress achieved in the past year in bringing polio to its lowest ever level, thanks to actions of member-states in placing polio eradication on an emergency footing even as Nigeria, for the first time in a very long time, did not report any case of polio last week.

According to the latest edition of Weekly Polio Update published Monday by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), no new Wild Polio Virus (WPV) cases were reported in the past week. “The total number of WPV cases for 2013 remains 22. The most recent WPV cases had onset of paralysis on April 24, 2013, that is type one (WPV1s) from Borno and Taraba.

“No new cases of circulating Vaccine Derived Polio Virus type two (cVDPV2) were reported in the past week. The most recent cVDPV2 case had onset of paralysis in November 24, 2012, from Kebbi.”

The report reads: “A rapid surveillance review was conducted in Kano. Slight improvements in surveillance were noted, particularly in areas with known deficits. Key recommendations to further strengthen surveillance activities were put forward, and activities will be monitored to ensure implementation.

“Sub-national Immunisation Plus Days (IPDs) were held last week in northern and middle-belt states. Initial monitoring results suggest that overall quality has stagnated, particularly in traditional high-risk areas. Preparations are on-going for the next IPDs in mid-June.”

Health ministers called on all countries to do more to protect frontline health workers everywhere, and ensure access to all children no matter where they live. Deadly attacks on health workers occurred in some parts of Pakistan (in December) and Nigeria (in February), and the Assembly praised the dedication and heroism of health workers everywhere.

WHO Director-General, Dr. Margaret Chan, said: “Insecurity continues to compromise the eradication effort. We mourn the many polio workers who have lost their lives trying to administer vaccines.”

Health ministers noted the impact of national emergency action plans being implemented in the last three remaining endemic countries – Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan – as more children are being vaccinated for the first time in traditional reservoir areas.

The Assembly also received stark warning of the on-going risk the disease poses to children everywhere; with confirmation of a new polio outbreak in the Horn of Africa that is Somalia and Kenya.

Noting the generous pledges made to support polio eradication at the Global Vaccine Summit, delegates urged donors to rapidly convert these pledges into contributions. The WHA pointed out that this funding was critical for accelerated implementation of the plan, given the complexity and scale of introducing inactivated polio vaccine worldwide.