UN rejects Indian Muslims' reported fear of polio vaccinations

NEW DELHI (AFP) - Muslims in northern India are immunising their children against polio, a UN study says, rejecting reports they were opposing a vaccination drive for fear it would render their children sterile.

A majority of the 674 polio cases in India in 2006 were in Muslim-dominated western Uttar Pradesh state and health campaigners had said Muslims were obstructing the immunisation drive this week because of sterility fears.

But a study by the United Nations Children's Education Fund (
UNICEF) posted on its website on Tuesday said the region regarded as the epicentre of the 2006 outbreak had made "important progress" in suppressing the disease.

The fact that just one of the 15 cases of polio recorded nationwide since January was from western Uttar Pradesh was proof that Muslims were immunising their children, the report said.

The finding "contradicts recent arguments that the recurrent cases of polio in the region were mainly due to the failure of many Muslims to have their children vaccinated," it said.

Some 74 percent of mosques monitored in a district of western Uttar Pradesh informed locals about dates when volunteers would administer the oral vaccine, the study added.

India, which is in the midst of its third polio vaccination drive since January, plans to immunise 95 million children by the time the campaign ends on Saturday.

Last year, India's Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss set 2007 as the deadline for eradicating the crippling disease in the country. India has been accused by the World Health Organisation of exporting the virus elsewhere in Asia as well as to Africa.

India is one of the four remaining polio-endemic countries in the world along with
Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria

Nigeria has been struggling to curb polio since some northern Islamic states imposed a year-long vaccine ban in mid-2003 over rumours that the vaccine caused sterility and it was part of a western plot against Muslims.