West African Leaders Push Polio Vaccine

SEME, Nigeria – Squeezing drops of vaccine into the mouths of wailing babies, the presidents of Nigeria and Benin launched a redoubled polio drive Sunday to regain progress lost after a vaccine-boycott led by Muslim clerics set back eradication efforts.

Under tight security, with snipers on the roofs of border posts scouring the surrounding vegetation, Presidents Mathieu Kerekou of Benin and Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria launched the polio campaign as dance troupes pranced to pounding drums.

The presidential doctoring is a prelude to a four-day, 22-nation vaccination blitz in west and central Africa next week.

The vaccine boycott – led last year by Islamic hard-liners who believed the vaccination campaign was a plot to sterilize or kill Muslims – is blamed for spreading the crippling disease back into more than a dozen African countries where it had previously been eradicated.

U.N. agencies enlisted the presidents to encourage popular acceptance of the vaccine this time, after heavily northern Islamic states ended their ban.

Obasanjo, who is also current chairman of the African Union, said African leaders resolved at their January summit in Nigeria to eradicate polio in the continent but need help to marshal resources to achieve the objective.

“African leaders have the political will but not enough funds” to fight polio, Obasanjo said.

The World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund are jointly working on a strategy of mobilizing acceptance of the polio vaccine by getting top political leaders to persuade ordinary people about the benefits of immunization. WHO spokeswoman Melissa Corkum said Sunday’s launch at Seme “was a really strong showing of political commitment” to polio eradication.

Yet Nigeria remains the biggest single obstacle for the global polio eradication effort, according to latest figures released by WHO.

Nigeria, whose more than 126-million population makes it Africa’s most populous country, had 788 cases of polio in 2004 – 63 percent of the world total.