Vaccine-related polio hits Nigeria

Nigeria is suffering from a rare outbreak of polio caused by a mutating vaccine, with dozens of children in the north of the country catching the disease as a result of the problem.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has admitted that the children caught the disease from others who had already been vaccinated against the paralysing virus.

New figures released by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) have revealed a total of 201 reported polio cases in Nigeria so far in 2007, as part of a global total of 545.

The WHO stated that it only recently discovered that the 69 cases stemmed from the mutant virus and Dr Bruce Aylward, director of the WHO polio eradication campaign, said: "It was an oversight on our part."

And the agency has called for increased levels of vaccination to ensure the disease does not spread any further.

There were nearly 2,000 cases of polio reported worldwide in 2006. However, immunisation programmes had seen the disease fall by more than 99 per cent between 1988 and 2003, from 350,000 to 700 respectively.

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