Nigeria to Test Polio Vaccines Over AIDS

Nigerian authorities said yesterday that polio vaccines recently administered in a nationwide campaign will undergo laboratory testing to calm fears about AIDS. Vice President Abubakar Atiku ordered testing on the vaccines for agents that could spread HIV or sterility, Nigeria's state television reported. On Friday, health workers launched a drive to immunize 15 million African children at immediate risk of contracting polio -- an effort hampered in Nigeria by the assertion of Islamic radicals that the drive is part of a U.S. plan to decimate the Muslim population by spreading AIDS and infertility. International health officials and the Nigerian government have called the allegations ridiculous, and UN officials involved in the campaign say proof of the vaccine's safety has been repeatedly supplied. Ninety-nine percent of all new polio cases worldwide are in Nigeria, Pakistan and India. Health authorities in India say they are close to defeating the disease: A successful immunization campaign there has lowered new polio cases to 145 as of Oct. 14, compared with 1,556 in 2002.

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