Source: Independent Online
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=86&art_id=qw1076493601122B252&se t_id=1
On February 11, 2004 Independent Online reported, "Immunising toddlers with mouth drops has reduced the number of polio cases from 350 000 children annually in the 1980s to fewer than 800 worldwide last year. Yet the virus is spreading again from Nigeria, where United Nations officials say a third of the world's cases are the result of a vaccine boycott. Amid rising Muslim-Western tensions worldwide, Nigeria's Muslims are heeding allegations that the vaccine is an American plot to spread Aids or infertility. Since October, three northern Nigerian states have banned door-to-door vaccinations until they are satisfied the vaccines do not contain harmful substances. 'Since September 11, the Muslim world is beginning to be suspicious of any move from the Western world,' said Sule Ya'u Sule, spokesperson for the governor of Kano, one of the states where the vaccine is banned. 'Our people have become really concerned about polio vaccine.'"