Nigerian president holds key to global polio eradication
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《英国医生杂志》
Nigeria抯 President Olusegun Obasanjo is expected to intervene to persuade the Muslim states in northern Nigeria to join a second round of poliomyelitis vaccinations across West Africa between 23 and 26 March, World Health Organization officials have said.
Leaders in the Nigerian states boycotted the first round of a campaign to immunise 63 million children across west Africa, claiming that the oral vaccine caused sterility and spread AIDS and branding the WHO campaign a US plot to depopulate Africa.
The boycott is a major setback for WHO抯 campaign to eradicate polio globally by the end of the year. So far, the 15 year campaign has reduced the number of west African countries in which the disease is still endemic to Nigeria and Niger. Polio is also present and circulating in Egypt, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India.
Last year, after several Nigerian states suspended polio vaccinations, more than 20 children became infected with polio as the virus crossed the borders to seven other west African countries, which had been polio-free for years: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Ghana, Togo, and the Central African Republic.
David Heymann, the epidemiologist in charge of WHO抯 global eradication campaign, said the first round of vaccinations in nine west African countries had been successfully completed, with the exception of the Nigerian states Kano and Zamfira and in a third Nigerian state Niger, which started but did not complete vaccinations.
WHO officials said the first round of vaccinations on 23 to 25 February boosted immunisation in most of west Africa to 80%, the level needed to halt transmission. Only in Nigeria did it fall below 80%.
In southern Nigeria, coverage is 80%, but in the central regions where the population is a mixture of Christian and Muslims it is 75%, WHO officials said. They gave no estimates for coverage in the northern Muslim states.
Dr Heymann said he hoped the Nigerian president would persuade these states to join the vaccination campaign later this month, after the Nigerian federal government receives the results of tests conducted on the vaccine.
The tests are to check levels of oestrogen, which is used in contraceptives, found by Nigerian scientists in the vaccine.
WHO and Nigerian federal officials have given assurances that the vaccine is safe and that any hormones found at the levels alleged would be harmless, amounting to less than that found in breast milk or even drinking water in some developed nations.
"The solution has to be a Nigerian one," said Dr Heymann, adding that only the Nigerian president and his federal government could break the deadlock over the polio vaccine.
He said that in the meantime, a second round of mass vaccinations across Asia had been completed successfully and that Pakistan, where polio is still endemic, had conducted its third round of polio immunisations.(Geneva Fiona Fleck)
Leaders in the Nigerian states boycotted the first round of a campaign to immunise 63 million children across west Africa, claiming that the oral vaccine caused sterility and spread AIDS and branding the WHO campaign a US plot to depopulate Africa.
The boycott is a major setback for WHO抯 campaign to eradicate polio globally by the end of the year. So far, the 15 year campaign has reduced the number of west African countries in which the disease is still endemic to Nigeria and Niger. Polio is also present and circulating in Egypt, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India.
Last year, after several Nigerian states suspended polio vaccinations, more than 20 children became infected with polio as the virus crossed the borders to seven other west African countries, which had been polio-free for years: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Ghana, Togo, and the Central African Republic.
David Heymann, the epidemiologist in charge of WHO抯 global eradication campaign, said the first round of vaccinations in nine west African countries had been successfully completed, with the exception of the Nigerian states Kano and Zamfira and in a third Nigerian state Niger, which started but did not complete vaccinations.
WHO officials said the first round of vaccinations on 23 to 25 February boosted immunisation in most of west Africa to 80%, the level needed to halt transmission. Only in Nigeria did it fall below 80%.
In southern Nigeria, coverage is 80%, but in the central regions where the population is a mixture of Christian and Muslims it is 75%, WHO officials said. They gave no estimates for coverage in the northern Muslim states.
Dr Heymann said he hoped the Nigerian president would persuade these states to join the vaccination campaign later this month, after the Nigerian federal government receives the results of tests conducted on the vaccine.
The tests are to check levels of oestrogen, which is used in contraceptives, found by Nigerian scientists in the vaccine.
WHO and Nigerian federal officials have given assurances that the vaccine is safe and that any hormones found at the levels alleged would be harmless, amounting to less than that found in breast milk or even drinking water in some developed nations.
"The solution has to be a Nigerian one," said Dr Heymann, adding that only the Nigerian president and his federal government could break the deadlock over the polio vaccine.
He said that in the meantime, a second round of mass vaccinations across Asia had been completed successfully and that Pakistan, where polio is still endemic, had conducted its third round of polio immunisations.(Geneva Fiona Fleck)