The ignorance of some Muslims is harming children in Nigeria.
AFP: Polio on the rise in north Nigerian state
Officials in northern Nigeria’s most populous state have said they are worried by a sharp rise in the number of cases of the paralysing disease poliomyelitis.
“In the last six months we have recorded 90 polio cases which is a radical shift from the same period in 2007 when we had zero cases,” Kano health commissioner Aisha Isyaku Kiru told a gathering of health officials and donor agencies late Friday.
She linked the increase to a decline in polio immunisation as parents have become increasingly reluctant to take their children for routine immunisation.
“Events in the past few months in the journey towards polio eradication have been disheartening,” Kano state governor Ibrahim Shekarau told the same gathering.
Kano has been the epicentre of the transmission of the crippling polio virus to other parts of the world since 2003 when the authorities suspended polio immunization for 13 months.
The suspension followed claims by radical Muslim clerics and some medical doctors that the vaccine was laced with substances that could render girls infertile as part of a US-led western plot to depopulate Africa.
Hat tip to Weasel Zippers.
Filed under: The Religion of Peace Files , Aisha Isyaku Kiru, immunization, Islam, Muslims, Nigeria, polio, Religion of Peace
