Anti-vacc backlash sees Nigeria polio cases soar

A combination of wild polio cases and people who contracted the disease as a result of being vaccinated has led to a backlash against the World Health Organization-led immunization program in Nigeria. As a result, the number of new cases of polio has almost doubled this year.

The news is the unfortunate follow-on from the admission by the WHO that, since 2005, 71 children were infected in Nigeria and Niger with polio as a result of taking an oral vaccine against the disease (Marketletter October 15, 2007). Conspiracy theories were already being circulated by suspicious religious leaders, who described the vaccine as intended to "sterilize Islamic children" or to infect them with HIV/AIDS. The reluctant and late admission by the WHO and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of problems with the drug appear to have exacerbated the situation.

Compared with last year, when there were 54 cases of wild polio virus, 2008 has seen 106 people affected. A report by the Associated Press stated that eight children this year alone have been infected with vaccine-triggered polio. The AP added that an injected-vaccine could be used which does not have the same adverse event rate as the oral treatment, but this has been rejected on grounds of cost and infrastructure requirements: a physician or a nurse would be needed to administer the therapy's delivery.