Vaccines ready for 50 million in Africa’s ‘Meningitis Belt’

A huge vaccination campaign to protect 50 million people against meningitis has been launched in seven African countries aiming to stamp out the deadly virus, health officials have said. The so-called ‘Meningitis Belt’ countries — Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and Sudan — are to get the jabs to ensure “a dramatic impact across the continent,” said Seth Berkley, managing director of GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation), the group backed by Microsoft tycoon Bill Gates. “We’ve known for a long time that there are terrible epidemics of meningitis every five to seven years in the ‘Meningitis Belt’,” Berkley told reporters in Geneva. “Nobody really understands why, but there are hundreds of thousands of cases, if not millions.” Meningitis can kill within 48 hours and cause brain damage, hearing loss or learning difficulties in 20 percent of sufferers, GAVI said. The vaccine, produced in association with the Serum Institute of India and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, was previously used in Burkina Faso where it led to the eradication of the disease after a year, Berkley said. Just as important, he added, the lack of disease meant that economic development could continue in developing countries, whereas previous epidemics tended to stop trade in its tracks.

Update on Polio Eradication in Nigeria

UPDATE ON POLIO ERADICATION IN NIGERIA The Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on Immunization was established by the Director-General of the World Health Organization in 1999 to provide guidance on the work of the WHO Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals Department. SAGE is the principal advisory group to WHO for vaccines and immunization. It is charged with advising WHO on overall global policies and strategies, ranging from vaccines and technology, research and development, to delivery of immunization and its linkages with other health interventions. SAGE is concerned not just with childhood vaccines and immunization, but all vaccine-preventable diseases.  The Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on immunization (SAGE) met in the first week of November 2012 in Geneva, Switzerland. Among other topics relating to immunization, SAGE reviewed a detailed summary of the current status of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative and impact of the national emergency action plans in the remaining three endemic countries. SAGE also discussed a draft of the polio endgame strategy, including an eventual switch from trivalent oral polio vaccine (OPV) to bivalent OPV, and the role inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) will play to minimise any risks associated with such a switch.  Also meeting this week in Geneva was the Polio Partners Group (PPG), including senior representatives from donor agencies, foundations and spearheading partners, to review current status of the global eradication effort, and issues relating to financing, including of the polio endgame. Opening the meeting, WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan highlighted the epidemiological opportunity of completing the job and its significant economic and humanitarian benefits, but also cautioned of the consequences of failure: “We know what is at stake if we do not get this job done. More than 250,000 people again paralysed by polio every year, including adults. Today, there are less than 200 new polio cases in the entire world. The prospect of not finishing polio eradication is unthinkable. That would be a humanitarian catastrophe that must be averted at all costs.” Nigeria  Two new WPV cases were reported in the past week (a WPV3 from Kano and a WPV1 from Katsina), bringing the total number of WPV cases for 2012 to 101. The case from Katsina is the most recent in the country (onset of paralysis on 15 October).  A special nomadic outreach strategy continues to be implemented. In priority Local Government Areas (LGAs) with high nomadic populations, activities are focusing on identifying settlements and population movements and ensure these are accurately reflected in microplans.  Based on the Dashboard Preparedness status, the November immunization plus days have been postponed from 10–13 November to 17–20 November. This will allow for completion of microplans revision in those LGAs that were in the second phase of revising their microplans.  In November, as part of efforts to strengthen routine immunization in the country, trainings will be held for WHO State Routine Immunization Focal Points. Source: http://www.polioeradication.org/Dataandmonitoring/Poliothisweek.aspx

Pfizer, LUTH hold free screening for host communities in Lagos

By Oyeyemi Gbenga-Mustapha The Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi-Araba, has held a free health screening for residents of Idi-Araba and Mushin, and other members of its immediate host communities. It was in collaboration with Pfizer Nigeria East Africa Region (Pfizer NEAR)as part of their anniversaries. Pfitzer is 55, LUTH 50. The residents were screened for cardiovascular diseases, glaucoma, among others. The events, which ran simultaneously were held at Idi-Araba Motor Park and Ojuwoye Market, Mushin. They saw specialists and other healthcare givers from various departments of LUTH attending to many people at the two places. Also, there were lectures by experts on HIV awareness, the correct use of male and female condoms, dangers associated with cholesterol, high sugar in the blood/diabetes and high blood pressure (BP). Speaking on Pfizer’s involvement, the Country Manager, Pfizer (NEAR), Enrico Liggeri, said the company was motivated to work closely with the communities because Pfizer was part of the Nigerian community which has been supportive since its existence. “For LUTH, it has been serving the people for 50 years and in giving back to the community we decided to celebrate our 55 years anniversary, which falls at the same time the hospital is celebrating theirs by providing these free screening opportunities for the communities in order to contribute positively to their health. “This is important because Nigeria has been said to have a high rate of patients suffering from cardiovascular diseases, some of whom do not know they suffer from it or know little or nothing about same. The first step to managing such is to go for screening, which most people have little or no time for until the disease starts showing signs.” Describing glaucoma as the number one cause of blindness, Luggeri said Pfizer has donated an equipment that can help detect this ailment, as well as, high blood pressure, which are silent killers owing to the fact that they ‘hide’ in the body for years and start showing signs when they have reached the peak period. “Hence, providing screening facilities and access of same by beneficiaries are the major steps in staying healthy,” said Erico. The Public Relations Officer, LUTH, Hope Nwawolo, said about 50 patients diagnosed to have problems in each category, would be given a tally for follow-up at the hospital. This, she said, is significant to the number of years being celebrated by the tertiary hospital. Expressing gratitude, the Seriki of Idi-Araba, Idris Lawal, who was represented by the Galadima of Idi-Araba, Abdul-Ganiu Lawal, thanked LUTH and Pfizer for their support to the community and for mobilising residents to benefit from such health care service which most of them have no time for or could hardly afford. He said: “We look forward to a good working relationship with the hospital and Pfizer in the nearest future.”

Confirmed: India’s Polio Eradication Campaign in 2011 Caused 47,500 Cases of Vaccine-Induced Polio Paralysis

Confirmed: India’s Polio Eradication Campaign in 2011 Caused 47,500 Cases of Vaccine-Induced Polio Paralysis By Dr. Mercola If you listen to mainstream media news, you'll be told that polio has now been eradicated in India – an accomplishment the Polio Global Eradication Initiative (PGEI), founded in 1988 by the World Health Organization (WHO), Rotary International, UNICEF, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), are attributing to the intense polio vaccination campaign. The Indian government reportedly had 2.3 million vaccine administrators visit over 200 million households, with oral polio vaccinations given to nearly 170 million children 5 years of age and younger;1 health officials are now doubling their efforts to conquer polio in Pakistan as well. What you're NOT learning from the mainstream media, however, is that there's a growing public movement fighting the profound misinformation about the vaccine, mainly because VACCINE-CAUSED polio is maiming and even killing a growing number of children every day, far outstripping the damage done by the wild-type polio that has been supplanted by the manmade form found within the vaccine. The Polio Vaccine is Causing a Deadly Polio-Like Disease in Children A paper published earlier this year in the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics should have made headlines around the globe, as it estimated there were 47,500 cases of a polio-like condition linked to the oral polio vaccine in 2011 alone. Researchers reported:2 "…while India has been polio-free for a year, there has been a huge increase in non-polio acute flaccid paralysis (NPAFP). In 2011, there were an extra 47,500 new cases of NPAFP. Clinically indistinguishable from polio paralysis but twice as deadly, the incidence of NPAFP was directly proportional to doses of oral polio received. Though this data was collected within the polio surveillance system, it was not investigated. The principle of primum-non-nocere [First, do no harm] was violated." Another way the public is being misled about India's claims to be polio-free is that this is only referring to "wild" polio cases – not vaccine-caused polio, which is occurring on a massive scale every year. The problem is that while the oral vaccine has reined in wild polio, the wild virus is being replaced by vaccine-derived polio virus (VDPV), which causes the same symptoms of acute flaccid paralysis associated with classically-defined polio. (Health officials don't call it polio because it isn't "wild.") Environmental surveillance for VDPV is now being conducted in a number of countries, including Australia, Egypt, Haiti, and Indonesia. In essence, this much-heralded vaccine strategy has replaced one infectious disease with another, more virulent strain... What kind of success is that, really? Third World Countries Using Dangerous and Dated Vaccines While most affluent nations now rely on inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV), many third-world countries still use an oral polio vaccine as it's far less expensive and simpler to administer. However, the oral polio vaccine is made from a live polio virus, which carries a risk of causing polio in populations who may not normally even be at risk of infection. The virus in the vaccine can also mutate into a deadlier version, igniting new outbreaks. Genetic analysis has proven that such mutated viruses have caused at least seven separate outbreaks in Nigeria. Polio outbreaks in Haiti and the Dominican Republic in 2002 were also traced to an "attenuated" strain of oral polio vaccine (OPV) that mutated back to even greater virulence than wild polio. According to a 2010 article in the New England Journal of Medicine, outbreaks of vaccine-derived polioviruses (VDPVs) have been occurring at a rate of once or twice per year, since the year 2000.3 And it's estimated that up to 180 Indian children develop vaccine-associated polio paralysis (VAPP) each year.4 The live polio virus from the vaccine can remain in your throat for one to two weeks, and in your feces for up to two months.5 So not only is the vaccine recipient at risk, but he or she can potentially spread the disease as long as the virus remains in feces – which, incidentally, turns on its head the age-old pro-vaccination dogma that the non-vaccinated represent an infection risk to the vaccinated. Pakistan: Over 3,000 Children Given Expired Polio Drops Over 3,000 children under 5 years old, and some only a few months old, were given expired polio drops in Pakistan earlier this year, resulting in serious illnesses that sent the children to the hospital. While the original story quoting the sick children's parents was pulled from the Internet, a "cache" of the story was still available and follow-up stories reported that some Pakistani health officials had been suspended for providing the expired drops, which were distributed during a spring 2012 vaccination campaign. Side effects reported due to the expired vaccines ranged from high fever to chest infections, and it's said that government officials originally tried to cover up the mishap… Media is Not Giving the Whole Picture on the Oral Polio Vaccine Controversy Barbara Loe Fisher, founder of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), spoke with Voice of America (VOA) about the intensive polio vaccine campaigns in the developing world. Unfortunately, much of Barbara's interview and insights were edited out of the video, as she explains below: "I taped an interview with Voice of America on the subject of intensive polio vaccine campaigns in the developing world. Brian Padden, a veteran VOA reporter of 25 years, really pressed me to do the interview even though I told him I was on deadline with another project and could not come into the office – so he came to my house! Anyway, I have interviewed with VOA periodically for radio and print articles since the 1980's with fair treatment. However, this time I was set up by his editors to be painted into the 'anti-vaccine' corner and the text of the article (reference below) and my excerpted quote from the longer interview I gave does not accurately reflect the substance of what I said. I actually gave the reporter this Indian journal article6 and raised the issue of the reported increases in Acute Flaccid Paralysis among Indian children given monthly doses of OPV [oral polio vaccine]. l told him that developed countries like the US had replaced live virus polio vaccine (OPV) with inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) more than a decade ago to prevent cases of vaccine-strain polio because OPV, being a live virus vaccine, causes recently vaccinated children to shed vaccine-strain polio virus in their body fluids for a period of time following vaccination. In underdeveloped countries with poverty and poor sanitation (like open sewage), vaccine-strain viruses can contaminate water and facilitate transmission of vaccine-strain paralytic polio. I brought up the issue of poverty, including poor sanitation, malnutrition, and limited access to health care facilities (for example, to undergo re-hydradation from diarrhea) as being an important cause of disease and poor health separate from vaccination. I did question whether repeated mass vaccination campaigns in underdeveloped countries were more a function of pharmaceutical companies seeking to sell product rather than making investments in infrastructure that address the basic causes of poor health. And I also questioned the lack of safety science to demonstrate that it is safe to give children MONTHLY polio vaccinations when children in the developed world only receive 5 doses. As you know, NVIC does not oppose the use of polio vaccine but we do not support excessive, repeated OPV vaccination campaigns in impoverished populations when that approach is not backed up with good safety science. We do oppose use of government enforcement mechanisms to aggressively implement mass vaccination campaigns that fail to obtain the voluntary, informed consent of the parents of children being vaccinated. We do this because NVIC defends the ethical principal of informed consent to medical risk taking, which is a human right, and we defend that right without compromise. It is too bad that either he chose, or his editors did not allow him, to use the substantive comments I made in my interview about addressing poverty, malnutrition and the root causes of disease versus simply giving these children OPV vaccine over and over again, when the vaccine can cause vaccine-strain polio, there are no safety studies showing that it is safe to give children monthly doses of OPV and the report out of India indicates that increases in Acute Flaccid Paralysis may be associated with repeated OPV vaccination in children." Has the Chemical Synthesis of Polio Virus Made Global Eradication Impossible? In 2002, it was reported that fully infectious polio virus had been recreated in a lab. While this was heralded as a milestone in biology, it was met with great unease by the general public who worried that polio could now be used as a weapon of bioterrorism. And, the very fact that it can be synthetically created technically means that global eradication is now impossible. Sayer Ji of GreenMedInfo.com stated: "One thing, which should not be overlooked is that the researchers who broke this story also revealed another highly disturbing fact: infectious polio virus has been known to be capable of de novo synthesis for over 10 years – essentially implying global polio eradication is now by principle impossible." In fact, in the journal Science in 2002 it was reported:7 "The charade about polio eradication and the great savings it will bring has persisted to date. It is a paradox, that while the director general of WHO, Margret Chan, and Bill Gates are trying to muster support for polio eradication it has been known to the scientific community, for over 10 years, that eradication of polio is impossible. This is because in 2002 scientists had synthesized a chemical called poliovirus a chemical called poliovirus in a test-tube with the empirical formula c332,652H492,388N98,245O131,196P7,501S2,340. It has been demonstrated that by positioning the atoms in sequence, a particle can emerge with all the properties required for its proliferation and survival in nature… the test-tube synthesis of poliovirus has wiped out any possibility of eradicating poliovirus in the future. Poliovirus cannot be declared extinct because the sequence of its genome is known and modern biotechnology allows it to be resurrected at any time in vitro. Man can thus never let down his guard against poliovirus. indeed the 18-year-old global eradication campaign for polioviruses will have to be continued in some format forever. The long promised 'infinite' monetary benefits from ceasing to vaccinate against poliovirus will never be achieved. The attraction that 'eradication' has for policy makers will vanish once this truth is widely known." The sentiment was repeated again in 2006:8 "…does the test-tube synthesis negate efforts to eradicate poliovirus? The conceptual answer to this is yes. Poliovirus cannot be declared extinct because the sequence of its genome is known and modern biotechnology allows it to be resurrected at any time in vitro. This is true for all viruses, including smallpox." Polio Vaccine Has Been Linked to Cancer You might be like me and be an American who received polio shots in the 1950's and 60's. I have not been, but many have ended up being informed – 40 years later – that many of those experimental polio shots were contaminated with a monkey virus, simian virus 40 (SV40), that causes cancer in lab animals and has been linked to brain, bone, lung, and lymphatic cancers in children and adults.9-10 They weren't told the whole truth about polio vaccine risks, and vaccine makers and health officials are still frugal with the facts when it comes to vaccine risks. Many make blanket statements saying that "vaccines are safe," when in fact such a statement simply cannot be made without misrepresenting the facts. The truth is, there are risks associated with any vaccine, and they clearly do not work for everyone. And even when they do work, you oftentimes end up with more virulent and hardy viruses… Not to mention, policy makers seem to be overlooking the poignant fact that people in third-world countries are in desperate need of clean water, healthy food and sanitation, which would work wonders for preventing many of the infectious diseases they are spending billions on vaccines for… The Underlying Causes of Polio are Being Ignored Vaccines alone don't eradicate disease. Polio spreads, after all, largely through feces-contaminated water, so ignoring that major risk factor while trying to eradicate the disease is ignorant, to put it nicely. What if, just what if, the same amount of money that has been spent on vaccines over the past decade had been spent on sanitation facilities, toilets, healthy food and clean water instead? Sayer Ji expands:11 "Due to the fact that polio spreads through the fecal-oral route (i.e. the virus is transmitted from the stool of an infected person to the mouth of another person through a contaminated object, e.g. utensil) focusing on hygiene, sanitation and proper nutrition (to support innate immunity) is a logical way to prevent transmission in the first place, as well as reducing morbidity associated with an infection when it does occur. Instead, a large portion of the world's vaccines are given to the third world as 'charity,' when the underlying conditions of economic impoverishment, poor nutrition, chemical exposures, and socio-political unrest are never addressed. You simply can't vaccinate people out of these conditions, and as India's new epidemic of vaccine-induced polio cases clearly demonstrates, the 'cure' may be far worse than the disease itself." As an aside, did you know you can reduce your risk of contracting polio simply by cutting back on sugar? The evidence suggesting that a diet high in refined sugar (as well as other forms of fructose) increases your risk of contracting polio is discussed in the book Diet Prevents Polio, written by Benjamin P. Sandler, M.D. The book was published in 1951, at the height of the polio epidemic. In general, it makes perfect sense that high sugar/fructose consumption could raise your risk of polio, as it, just like other infections, only tends to cause complications when your immune system is weakened, which can easily happen through poor nutrition (high fructose consumption), stress, and lack of sleep. So, the polio vaccine is not the only, nor the ultimate, solution to prevent this disease. Maintaining a strong and well-functioning immune system will always be your first line of defense, as this will reduce your risk of any number of diseases, including polio – and this is, unfortunately, what most people in third-world countries are missing. What You Can Do to Make a Difference Right NOW I urge you to do your homework before giving your children to any vaccine. The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) is a top-notch source that provides well-referenced information on vaccines and infectious diseases. For a full list of precautions for children, teenagers and adults, read the manufacturer product inserts, and get more information about how to recognize a vaccine reaction at www.NVIC.org. Protecting your right to informed consent is essential. NVIC has been the leading advocate for informed consent to vaccination since its inception. Signing up to be a user of NVIC's free online Advocacy Portal at www.NVICAdvocacy.org gives you access to practical, useful information to help you become an effective vaccine choice advocate in your own community. NVIC is 100 percent funded by donations, so please, take a moment right now to make a donation to the NVIC. Your tax-deductible donation allows NVIC to furnish the public with life-saving information on informed vaccine decision-making, vaccine injury reduction and research. They support the availability of all preventive health care options, including vaccination, and the right of consumers to make educated, voluntary health care choices.

Proletarian Agenda screams: Enough of Stealing in the Name of Compensation!

A civil society group, the Proletarian Agenda, has expressed displeasure at recent reports that the lawyers of the Trovan Victims Forum (TVF) are threatening to go back to court to reopen the settled Trovan case in respect of the 1996 trials during the meningitis epidemic in Kano.

In a statement signed by Mallam Umar Sani, the organization said “The Proletarian Agenda notes that the TVF’s cases were settled out of court before their members agreed to be DNA-tested. Indeed, the TVF was responsible for the delay in the DNA process because the body obtained a court injunction to stop it. Investigations carried out by our associates in the civil society movement showed that the 192 TVF members were compensated to the tune of $5,000 each before they agreed to withdraw their cases from court. Now, with the rumour that only six out of the 192 TVF members were DNA-matched with actual participants in the Trovan study, the other pretenders and impostors are being egged on by their greedy sponsors to muddy the waters all over again by casting aspersions on the scientific DNA process and going back to court.”

The Proletarian Agenda also made a startling revelation concerning behind-the-scene happenings that led to the out-of-court settlement. “We insist that even among thieves there must be honour. The TVF lawyers’ fees were settled along with the TVF member’s payment. It is scandalous that a body would willingly give an undertaking after collecting money and then turn round to repudiate its agreement. We dare the TVF lawyers and members to deny that they have collected money before withdrawing their case from court.”

Continuing, the civil society group counseled as follows: “We call on the Meningitis Board not to succumb to blackmail. Only those certified through the agreed processes should be compensated. The TVF is scared that at the end of the day, if only six out of their 192 members pass the test, it would have been scientifically exposed as a 419 body that tried to obtain compensation under false pretences. Some people don’t want the so-called Trovan saga to ever come to an end. They must be stopped in their tracks.”

The organization therefore addressed the following appeal to Governor Musa Kwankwanso of Kano State: “We call on the Kano State Government to be cautious about being used to derail the compensation programme because we know that those behind this attempted scam of claiming compensation for fake victims would stop at nothing to satiate their greed”.

Trovan Saga: Not Yet Uhuru?

By Yaya S. Ibrahim

I read Malik Mohammed’s article titled “Brila FM, Trovan, Technology and all that…” (Published in Sunday Trust, 28 August 2011) with keen interest. He is well entitled to his celebration of the restoration of sanity to what has become the Trovan Trial Saga. Maybe he should tarry a little before taking to the dance floor, because the truth is that the dust hasn’t completely settled on the issue.

We know as a matter of fact that the Board of Trustees continues its analysis of claims to identify additional persons qualified to receive compensation from the Healthcare/Meningitis Trust Fund has already announced that so far, 14 individuals -- out of 547 applicants – have been successfully identified as having passed the DNA testing. Four out of the 14 have already been compensated to the tune of $175,000 each (about N26, 250,000 per beneficiary) on the strength of their DNA test-validated claims that they are next-of-kin to persons who did indeed participate in the 1996 Trovan study. The process of compensating the 10 other persons has reportedly commenced.

We also know that DNA is only one of the various criteria for establishing proof of participation in the 1996 study. The Board also took account of identification cards, physical appearance, medical records, photographs from the 1996 clinical trials and whether a claimant’s initials, age, and gender match those on record. In addition, facial resemblance to photographs on file was considered together with possession of relevant verification materials or objects such as the Trovan trials pink card issued to participants in 1996.

What this means is that anyone staking a claim to compensation is expected to pass the DNA and also meet these other criteria. The 14 claimants so far confirmed passed the scientifically verifiable process.

The sad story, however, is that there remains some spanner in the wheel, the type that should dampen the mood of Malik Mohammed and all those craving for a speedy conclusion to the long-drawn saga.

Remember that last year, an organization known as Trovan Victims Foundation (TVF) got a court injunction to prevent the Board from processing DNA test results on the first 355 claimants to the Fund. This resulted in a long delay of the exercise until earlier this year when the injunction was lifted and the Board was able to continue its work.

It appears – again – that TVF may be attempting to frustrate the Board’s work to compensate valid claimants. This time around, one hears that the organization is reversing itself on the DNA testing procedure. Interestingly, however, six members of this group passed the DNA test. The word in town is that the TVF is not satisfied with having only six of its members successful. They want money to go round all their members as if this was a jamboree.

It is difficult to determine whose agenda the TVF is pursuing, considering that the group agreed that the Board’s identity verification process was fair, and all 192 TVF members submitted saliva samples for DNA testing. In fact, right from the beginning, the TVF’s legal actions have always smacked of sabotage. Why would the organization now think of discrediting a process it endorsed and was a part of? Some observers have suggested that its negative position on the process is as a result the disqualification of the majority of persons it presented for the testing process. That sounds like sour grapes!

And talking about stories doing the rounds in Kano, is it true that members of the TVF, including their leader Alhaji Mustapha Maisikeli, already have been each compensated $5,000 (US) before they agreed to cooperate with the process? Is it true that, in signing the releases, the TVF members agreed that they are not entitled to any additional money and promised to abide by the Board’s decision as to the use of DNA testing to determine compensation?

Does its present opposition to the process not amount to reneging on an agreement that it has entered into? Isn’t there a word like honour in their dictionary?
Whatever its answers are to these posers, it is clear that TVF wants to undermine the Board, which has taken steps to make the people of Kano aware of its work and educate them on the verification process. As persons in the Kano area will attest to, there have been huge efforts in the area of public awareness. These have included massive media publicity. I live in Kano and have been following these developments with interest.

Perhaps we should remind ourselves that it has been more than 15 years since the Trovan clinical study took place. Many of the people involved have since moved on – relocation, deaths to some who managed to survive the 1996 epidemic, etc. There is also the fact that many of the people who travelled to Kano’s Infectious Diseases Hospital (IDH) in 1996 were from outside Kano State, and mostly from rural areas. They would not know about the settlement agreement without the kind of widespread publicity which the Board has taken care to provide.

Indeed, in spite of such publicity, it is totally conceivable that many would still be left out for a variety of reasons, including misconceptions about DNA testing which some believe is invasive of their privacy or even injurious. It is the same way in which people refuse to take part in immunization. As one of those involved in National Community Mobilization towards Universal Child Immunization (UCI) 1990, I can recall the difficulty of persuading populations in rural communities to make their infants and children available for vaccination. Roles were identified for traditional rulers, religious leaders, artistes, social groups, including women’s groups, professional groups, etc.

In the end, not all of these efforts paid off as expected. Similarly, despite the best efforts of many prominent Nigerians, including our revered father, the Emir of Kano, large numbers of participants in the Trovan trial may not be found. This is not to discountenance Malik Mohammed’s valid point about some valid claimants refusing to come forward on account of their religious belief that Allah gives and Allah takes and that one shouldn’t be seen to be profiting from ‘blood money’.

For Allah’s sake, let those who have been scientifically verified come forward and collect their compensation while the Board sorts out other issues connected with the life-changing settlement process. Enough of the TVF’s antics!

• Yaya S. Ibrahim is a development worker based in Kano

The Media, Trovan, Technology and all that ...

By Malik Mohammed

Radio sports channel, Brila FM, the brainchild of the indefatigable Larry Izamoje, is currently running a public awareness message that shows that there is only one world for “Goal” from one language group in Nigeria to the other – about 300 of them! No matter the tongue, all our languages have the same word for “goal”.
Nigerians should listen to the message, which in itself has immense entertainment value for its dramatic quality.

We are a country in which consensus on any issue is hard to achieve. It seems that each and every one of the more than 150 million people who make up its population has his/her opinion any issue at any given time.

Where the issue is clear enough for us to instantly agree on, there are professional agents of disunity to introduce extraneous factors into the equation to cause division. The prism could be that of religion or ethnicity. And before you know it, the newspapers and airwaves are awash with different interpretations.

Is the situation about to change? What has technology got to do with it?

But for the tragic dimensions of the 1996 meningitis epidemic in Kano and Pfizer’s trial of its drug Trovan, it would have been apt to say “All’s well that end’s well” to the recent pay-outs by the Meningitis Trust Board to verified participants at the Trovan trial.

Reports recently had it that compensations have been made to some qualified claimants of the Healthcare/Meningitis Trust Fund and that more beneficiaries will be announced as more DNA results are received from the testing laboratory. This seems to signal an end to the bickering over the most acceptable approach to managing the compensations. At a point, what was evidently the most efficacious option didn’t go down as the most acceptable to some stakeholders. But what no one doubted was the need for urgent implementation of the July 2009 settlement agreement between Pfizer and the Kano State government, which preferred the DNA approach.

It was always necessary to neutralize the machinations of opportunists. For example, although about 200 persons participated in the trial, some 547 people are known to have staked claims to compensation arising from the 1996 Trovan trials. The claimants offered themselves as direct parents of participants or legal guardian of participants.

If steps were not taken to forestall fraud, compensations to 547 would have significantly reduced the impact of the gesture to the actual claimants, who are about a third of this figure. It would be like an all-comers affair where all one had to do was show up and receive a slice of the largess.

Of course, the controversy over the acceptability – or otherwise – of DNA testing was always unnecessary, given that it is most reliable and internationally recognized method of genetic identity verification. What made opposition to the use of the method surprising is that the testing had been assigned to a state-of-the art laboratory.

In the end, however, sanity prevailed and claimants were educated on the purpose of the DNA test in their native language before they were taken through the rigorous process involving signatures and thumb prints to indicate consent; whereupon a simple cotton swab was used to obtain saliva samples from claimants’ mouths. These were conducted by local medical staff with knowledge of the local languages (Hausa and English).

During a discussion with some journalists who had been following the Trovan case for quite some time, I gathered that the fresh samples of cerebrospinal fluids of participants were compared with those obtained during the 1996 Trovan clinical study. Inevitably, the large number of claimants - 547 individuals – meant a longer period of DNA testing and analysis, including the Board’s review. I was gratified to know that neither Pfizer nor the Government of Kano State was vested with the responsibility for determining eligibility for compensation as that responsibility belongs to the Board.

From the commentaries one has heard and read, it appears that people are generally pleased with the outcomes of the DNA testing procedures. Considering the tragic nature of the epidemic and the long litigation coupled with our people’s belief in Destiny, I won’t be surprised if it turns out that not all the possible claimants showed up for the exercise in spite of the 547 claimants that went through the DNA test. Some religious zealots actually believe that such a payment on account of the tragic circumstances is haram.

Let me come back to the issue of technology. Considering that technology was also very critical to the conduct of the Nigerian general elections in April, even admitting that the results of the elections are being contested in court, it does seem, therefore that we are making progress somehow.

Whatever the legal issues that are been challenged about them, the 2011 elections were a marked improvement on, and significant departure from, previous elections in this country. The electoral process depended largely on technology. And given the rancor-free outcome of the use of DNA testing to verify the victims of the Trovan trial, no one is henceforth going to hold technological approaches to resolving similar issues in suspicion.

Brila FM has taught us that there is only one word for “goal”. Thanks to technology, that message is heard all over the country. In the same vein, the Meningitis Board has shown us that things can be done transparently with the use of technology to sort out the wheat from the chaff. With the state of the art medical complex at an advanced stage of construction in Kano as part of the settlement process, perhaps we shall soon be able to say “All is well that ends well.”.

• Mohammed is an Abuja-based commentator on public health issues.