Current Oral Polio-vaccine Campaign in Africa
The claims of the OPV-AIDS hypothesis disrupted the longstanding effort of the WHO and UN to achieve poliomyelitis eradication worldwide through use of the oral polio vaccine of Albert Sabin, which is thought to be safe and effective by virtually all medical authorities. If this long-term public-health goal could be achieved, poliomyelitis would follow smallpox as the second eradicated infectious human disease. The OPV AIDS hypothesis relates only to the historical origin of AIDS, and its proponents have accepted the safety of the modern polio vaccines, but rumors based on a misunderstanding of the hypothesis exist, and those rumors are blamed in part for the recent failure to eliminate polio in Nigeria.
By 2003, cases of poliomyelitis had been reduced to just a small number in isolated regions of West Africa, with sporadic cases elsewhere. However, the disease has since resurged in Nigeria and in several other nations of Africa, which epidemiologists trace to refusals by certain local populations to allow their children to be administered the Sabin oral vaccine. The expressed concerns of local populations often relate to fears that the vaccine might induce sterility, and it seems that debate over the OPV-AIDS hypothesis has fueled additional fears. Since 2003, these fears have spread among some in the Muslim community, with Datti Ahmed, of the Supreme Council for Sharia in Nigeria stating that:
“We believe that modern-day Hitlers have deliberately adulterated the oral polio vaccines with anti-fertility drugs and viruses which are known to cause HIV and AIDS.”
Polio has also resurged in areas of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.
Read more about this topic: OPV AIDS Hypothesis
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