WHO: Polio Cases Rose by One-Third in 2004

GENEVA -- The number of polio cases last year rose by almost one-third, despite a renewed immunization campaign in Nigeria after the end of a vaccine boycott, the World Health Organization said Wednesday.

The 2004 worldwide case count reached 1,185, compared with 784 in 2003, the United Nations health agency said.

Most of the cases were in Africa -- largely in Nigeria, the continent's most populous nation.
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Hardline Islamic clerics in Nigeria's northern Kano state led the immunization boycott, claiming the polio vaccine was part of a U.S.-led plot to render Nigeria's Muslims infertile or infect them with AIDS.
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Amid the vaccine boycott, the Nigerian-rooted virus spread to neighbor countries including Benin, Chad, and Cameroon. It also was exported further afield, to Botswana, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Togo and even Saudi Arabia.

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