Nigeria records 54 new polio cases since Feb-WHO
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Fifty-four new polio cases were recorded in Nigeria between February and April, a drop of nearly a half from last year, according to the World Health Organisation.
The infection rate is down from the 91 cases recorded between Feb. 27 and April 29, 2004, WHO said in its weekly report obtained on Thursday.
The report said nine new cases were confirmed in Yobe state and Nigeria’s biggest city, Lagos - the first in the southern region where WHO said there had been no fresh infections since September.
WHO said improved control in the southern states and resumed immunisation in the north, where Muslim clerics led a boycott of vaccination in late 2003, explained the drop in new infections.
“Of concern is that 16 states… have detected 54 wild poliovirus cases in the low transmission season,” WHO said.
Nigeria’s polio infection rate had doubled to 788 in 2004 after Muslim leaders who alleged that vaccines were part of a Western plot to spread HIV and infertility orchestrated a 10-month boycott of immunisations in the region.
The boycott helped the crippling disease spread to some African and Asian countries previously declared polio-free. Immunisation resumed last July after northern leaders agreed to re-examine the scientific evidence.
Nigeria, which accounted for two thirds of new polio cases last year, and 22 African countries launched a synchronised vaccination drive in February, targeting 100 million children under five years old.
International health experts say a target set by the United Nations agency UNICEF and WHO to eradicate the disease by 2005 could still be reached if the planned immunisation rounds reach a high percentage of children.
The next round of immunisation in Nigeria is set for May 14-17.
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