In various reports released over the course of the past week, the United Nations has announced that the world is on the verge of an outbreak of polio that, although currently restricted to the African continent, could very well spread to and across the developed world resulting in an epidemic not dissimilar to that experienced across the globe in the last century.
With the support of the U.N. and the World Health Organization, parts of Nigeria have begun a massive immunization programme, but an Islamic leaders’ vaccine ban could very well defeat the best efforts of the U.N. and the W.H.O to vaccinate some 15 million children in West Africa who are at risk of contracting polio. The consequences of a ban could be catastrophic.
Two Nigerian states, Kano and Zamfara, have stuck to their position that the WHO-led campaign is part of a U.S. conspiracy to render Muslims infertile or give them AIDS, forbidding health workers from administering the vaccines. Independent research carried out in Nigeria has found no traces of HIV or anti-fertility agents in the polio vaccine being used there.
