The UN and UNICEF are behind this initiative

Nov 26, 2008 12:10 GMT  ·  By
Nigerian president Umaru Musa Yar'Adua also set up a task force, to help with the campaign
   Nigerian president Umaru Musa Yar'Adua also set up a task force, to help with the campaign

A massive vaccination campaign is scheduled to start in Nigeria on November 30th, as the country's number of new polio cases rose again as compared to last year. Currently, the nation is one of the 4 countries in the world – next to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India – not to have eradicated the incurable disease completely. In 2008, some 750 new cases of poliomyelitis were recorded, a 225 percent increase from 2007.  

President Umaru Yar'Adua ordered the formation of a presidential task force that would help with the vaccination efforts, especially in the Northern states, which are mostly Muslim, and where cure administration stopped in 2003, when religious leaders told people that the shots could harm their children. A very low level of education made parents fear doctors and the injections, so the children were left exposed to the disease that can cause total paralysis.  

"The challenge is now for all stakeholders to ensure that all eligible children in Nigeria are indeed taken to the vaccination posts (...) to receive these vaccines and supplements," said a statement released recently by the World Health Organization (WHO).  

This campaign was largely prompted by complaints Nigeria received from neighbors Benin, Chad, and Niger, which announced new polio cases on their territories, where vaccinations occur regularly. The only logical conclusion is that the virus traveled over the borders in infected Nigerian children, who didn't receive the immunization dosages they were supposed to. Several of them are required in order to provide complete resistance to the pathogen, but many children, especially in the North, didn't get even half of their doses.  

The $6 billion that were required to set up this vaccination initiative came from the United Nations, UNICEF, the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and Rotary International. These organizations put together similar campaigns in the other countries as well, bringing hope to the poorest places on Earth, where diseases that have long since been eradicated in the developed world still roam the streets.