Plans by the World Health Organization to vaccinate against poliomyelitis in Nigeria to eradicate the condition there by the end of the year could run into a major hurdle.
The Supreme Council for Sharia, one of the respected Muslim organisations in the predominantly Muslim region of northern Nigeria, has asked the government to halt the immunisation programme, claiming it has evidence to show that the vaccine contains anti-fertility substances.
The secretary general of the Supreme Council for Sharia in Nigeria, Dr Ibrahim Datti Ahmed, said the application of the oral polio vaccine should be suspended to allow time for the investigation of the council's claim.
Dr Datti said investigations by his organisation have found that recently declassified US documents show that the United States had had a policy, since 1975, that promoted the depopulation of African and Muslim countries.
He added that the documents showed that WHO had introduced human chorionic gonadotrophin (HCG), a naturally occurring hormone essential for maintaining pregnancy in women, through massive anti-tetanus health campaigns in Nigeria, Tanzania, the Philippines, Nicaragua, and Mexico.
Dr Datti said "WHO has been actively involved for more than 20 years in the development of anti-fertility vaccines using HCG tied to tetanus toxoid as a carrier. The council harbours strong reservations on the safety of our population not least because of our recent experience in the Pfizer scandal, when our people were used as guinea pigs with the approval of the federal ministry of health and the approval of all the relevant UN agencies." (see BMJ 2003;326:899)
He said statistics showed that the killers of Nigerian children were malaria, measles, meningitis, cholera, and typhoid, adding that only 140 cases of polio have been recorded since 2002. But, he said, for unfathomable reasons billions of naira and millions of dollars are spent on polio prevention alone, while the other child killer diseases are not being given equal attention.
Dr Datti said, "If the donor agencies are sincere, they should help the country in combating the more dangerous killer diseases such as malaria, measles, meningitis, cholera, and typhoid fever while investigations into the polio vaccines are going on."
Nigeria is one of the few countries where polio is still ravaging children and the ailment is commonly found in the predominantly Muslim northern Nigeria.
A spokesperson for WHO said the allegations were unfounded and that the criticisms were politically motivated.