Many Muslim Nigerians, warned by clerics that vaccinations are U.S. plot, refuse to protect children as measles kills hundreds

By OLOCHE SAMUEL Associated Press Writer

(AP) - KANO, Nigeria-Accusations by Islamic preachers that vaccines are part of an anti-Muslim American plot are threatening efforts to combat a measles epidemic that has killed hundreds of children, according to local health workers and parents in largely Muslim northern Nigeria.

Government officials and aid workers play down anti-vaccine sentiment, but all the measles deaths are in the north, where authorities last year had to suspend polio immunization due to fears fanned by some hard-line clerics.

Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation of 130 million people, has recorded 20,859 measles cases this year. At least 589 measles victims have died, most children under 5 years and all in the north, according to figures from the Nigerian Red Cross and the U.N. World Health Organization.

The south, which is mainly Christian, suffered only 253 of this year's measles cases, and no deaths. Health services are much better in the south, but the anti-vaccination sentiment in the north also may have played a part in the difference.

Last year, WHO recorded 24,363 measles cases in Nigeria from January to September. With the toll expected to rise as the season peaks in March, and some states accounting only for January and February, it seems likely 2005 will see a rise in the number of measles cases.

Across Africa, measles deaths fell from 873,000 in 1999 to just over 500,000 - or half the global total - in 2003, according to the latest figures from the WHO.

"Since the polio controversy, I have not presented any of my children for immunization because my husband said I should not," said Ramatou Mohammed, who was at Abdullahi Wase Hospital in Kano city this week. She was seeking treatment for Miriam, the baby strapped to her back who she said was covered in a measles rash.

"I heard on the radio that the vaccine was contaminated. I still don't trust any vaccine," said Mohammed, 28, a mother of four whose views were echoed by other parents in the hospital waiting room.

In 2003, Islamic clerics claimed the United States was using polio vaccines to sterilize Muslims or contaminate them with the AIDS virus. They ordered a boycott in messages disseminated from mosques, in radio broadcasts and even door-to-door campaigning.

U.S. Embassy spokesman Rudolph Stewart said the claims were "absolutely ridiculous ... There is no plot against Muslims. The vaccines are for medical purposes only."

Three powerful state governors joined the polio vaccine boycott.

It ended in July, after 11 months, only after the governors were persuaded to accept vaccines bought from the predominantly Muslim nation of Indonesia.

But by then the number of polio cases in Nigeria had multiplied by five, and the crippling disease had spread to nine African countries where it had previously been eradicated.

And some clerics haven't backed down. Nasir Mohammed Nasir, imam of Kano's second-largest mosque, said this week that Americans "can't be killing my brothers and children in Iraq and at the same time claim to want to save my children from polio and other diseases.

"We suspect a sinister motive."

(George W. Bush's international policies have yet another unfortunate effect.)

In Washington, U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli called the allegations "crazy, outlandish, unfounded."

Binta Alkassim, a 30-year-old mother of six children whose 2 1/2-year-old daughter had just been cured of measles in a Kano hospital this week, said the polio controversy had scared many away from vaccinations.

"You can't trust these Americans," she said.

Nigeria is one of three countries most affected by measles, alongside India and Pakistan, according to WHO. The agency had hoped to bring measles under control worldwide this year.

Dr. Binta Ibrahim, a senior practitioner at Kano's main Murtala Mohammed Hospital, thought people's reservations slowly are being overcome.

"The controversy over the oral polio vaccine ... certainly had a negative effect even on routine immunizations administered to children against other childhood diseases," she said in an interview.

But now, "people have begun to accept immunization, although slowly. It will take some time to get them to accept them completely."

WHO spokeswoman Melissa Corkum said many people seem eager to have their children vaccinated.

"There does continue to be some degree of rejection, but that is improving," Corkum said. "I've seen people asking 'What about measles?', and the government responding by providing measles immunization."

Nasiru Mahmoud, a Ministry of Health official in Kano, said his office had received no reports of resistance to measles immunizations and said the outbreak in Kano could not be called an epidemic.

"We had some cases which our medical personnel have put under control."

Nigerian officials are typically reluctant to give out any information which may paint a negative image of the country.

Kano state has been worst hit, with nearly 7,000 cases including 155 deaths since January.

2005-03-24T00:48:14Z