World Health Organization reported today that the number of world wide polio cases had increased by more than 33 percent. The increase was blamed in
part to a vaccine boycott in Nigeria. Most of the cases of the disease occurred in Nigeria and the boycott was due to rumors that the vaccine was a
U.S. plot to infect them with AIDS
www.cnn.com
GENEVA, Switzerland (AP) -- The number of worldwide polio cases last year rose by almost one-third after a vaccine boycott in Nigeria spawned a
resurgence of the disease across Africa, the World Health Organization said Wednesday.
The number of cases worldwide in 2004 reached 1,185, compared with 784 in 2003, the United Nations health agency said.
Most of the cases were in Africa -- largely in Nigeria, the continent's most populous nation. Hardline Islamic clerics in Nigeria's northern Kano
state led the immunization boycott, claiming the polio vaccine was part of a U.S.-led plot to render Nigeria's Muslims infertile or infect them with
AIDS.
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It is amazing that diseases like polio still exist. But if you cannot vaccinate people, then you always run the risk. This also highlights the
difficulties of protecting large third world populations from disease. Even if they develop an AIDS vaccine, the slightest rumors could cause boycotts
and render it ineffective.
So sad that people in this world still have to go through this type of diceases, I had a cousin that had polio as a child she was older than me, and
because of the disease she became handicap one of her leg shorter that the other one and this happend in the sixties.