The New York Times > International > African Strain of Polio Virus Hits Indonesia

The New York Times > International > African Strain of Polio Virus Hits Indonesia: "A case of polio has been detected in Indonesia, World Health Organization officials said yesterday, indicating that an outbreak spreading from northern Nigeria since 2003 has crossed an ocean and reached the world's fourth most populous country."...

Indonesia's last case was in 1995, and it is now the 16th country to be reinfected by a strain of the virus that broke out in northern Nigeria when vaccinations stopped there, then crossed Africa and the Red Sea...

Resistance to polio vaccine has been high from northern Nigeria to the Pakistan frontier because of persistent rumors that it is a Western plot to render Muslim girls infertile or to spread AIDS. Paradoxically, after several states in Muslim northern Nigeria halted vaccinations in 2003, it was purchases of Indonesian vaccine that persuaded wary imams and politicians to drop their opposition, because it is a Muslim country...

With each new case, the W.H.O.'s goal of eradicating polio by the end of this year slips farther away. With its emergency response fund virtually depleted, the organization is pleading with donors for help with containing new outbreaks in Ethiopia, Yemen and other very poor countries.

At the disease's low point, in early 2003, it was endemic in only six countries: Nigeria, Niger, Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan and India...