A suspected polio outbreak has been reported in northern Nigeria. The outbreak occurred in an area that had boycotted immunization campaigns.
According to the Associated Press:
The suspected outbreak was in Kano state, one of several in northern Nigeria that had shunned polio vaccination drives over suspicions the vaccines were part of a U.S.-led plot to render Muslims sterile.
[. . .]
The World Health Organization has sent a team to the area to assess the reported outbreak, a WHO official said Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Unless tests are conducted, we can't say it's polio," the official said.
In September, Shekarau suspended participation in a global immunization program on the grounds that local scientists had discovered traces of a hormone in foreign-made vaccines that they feared could make girls infertile.
Some local Islamic leaders accused the Nigerian federal government of being part of a U.S. plot to kill off Muslims with the vaccines.
[. . .]Since Kano suspended polio immunization, there has been a resurgence of cases across 10 African countries previously polio-free, with strains traced to Nigeria.
Nigeria has reported 259 polio cases this year. The figure represents more than 60 percent of the 339 cases reported worldwide.
It accounted for nearly 50 percent of 784 cases reported in a total of 15 countries in 2003.
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