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eight Public Health or Public Threat? Polio Eradication Campaigns, Islamic Revival, and the Materialization of State Power in Niger Adeline Masquelier In late 2003 rumors began circulating in the small provincial town of Dogondoutchi, Niger that the poliomyelitis vaccine administered to children was harmful. The vaccine, the rumor had it, caused sterility in children and had been developed by Western scientists to lower the world’s Muslim population . When nurses dispatched to administer doses of oral Polio Vaccine (oPV) to children under five tried to enter people’s homes on National Vaccination Day, they were met with staunch resistance on the part of some parents who accused them of wanting to harm their progeny. In surrounding villages, similar scenarios ensued as health workers going house to house with polio drops tried to immunize the children targeted by the vaccination drive. Eager to cut short the emergence of a massive opposition to the WHo-sponsored campaign to eradicate polio, the secrétaire général of the Dogondoutchi prefecture dispatched police officers to a village where residents had denied health workers access to their children. There the officers promptly arrested two individuals who, by protesting the presence of health workers, had interfered with the drive. The two men were brought to Dogondoutchi under police escort. once in the secrétaire général’s office, they were lectured about the benefits of vaccination before eventually being released, but not before being charged a fine amounting to the cost of sending a health worker back to the village to resume inoculation. Despite concerted attempts by local public health officials to prevent further disruptions of the vaccination drive and alleviate parental concerns regarding the safety of the oPV, rumors that the vaccine was part of a Western plot to sterilize Muslim girls (and in some minds, boys as well) continued to hinder the success of the 2003 campaign. The vaccine was not safe, embattled residents reasoned, otherwise why weren’t parents charged for it? After all, the government did not provide other free services anymore. In the eyes of suspicious parents the only reasonable explanation was that local officials were acting on behalf of impious Westerners eager to weaken the country’s Muslim resurgence. While parental fears were largely articulated around the notion that the oPV caused infertility, a few individuals sus- 214 ADELINE MASQUELIER pected the vaccine of inducing atheism. For yet others, it was the vaccine itself that struck children with polio. In some communities, polio campaigns were thwarted by alarmist claims that the vaccine passed on the AIDS virus and had been devised to deplete the world of its Muslim population.1 In elite liberal circles the prevailing view was that the failure of the campaign to wipe out polio in Niger was due to the influence that conservative Muslim clerics held over their followers. According to this logic, parents who had taken part in the boycott against polio immunization were following the dictates of religious leaders who were themselves influenced by prominent malamai (Muslim religious specialists) from neighboring Nigeria.2 It was they, government officials acknowledged, who needed to be educated on the benefits of immunization before vaccinators could successfully embark on the next nationwide campaign.3 In northern Nigeria, religious leaders had pressured public officials to halt the 2003 vaccination campaign amidst fears that the drive was part of a deliberate attempt to spread infertility (or HIV) among Muslims (Renne 2006, 2010). Government officials agreed to test the safety of the vaccine before resuming the campaign—a move that generated a fracas médiatique in the Western media. Teams of local medical experts undertook extensive investigations of vaccine factories in Indonesia, India, and South Africa before officially declaring that the vaccine was innocuous (Dugger and McNeill Jr. 2006). In Niger the government took a firm stand against anti-vaccination advocates and refused to satisfy their demands that the vaccine be tested by local doctors. The oPV had been administered to millions of children over the last 40 years and was perfectly safe, health officials insisted in radio-transmitted and televised messages aimed at promoting the health benefits of vaccination. To stress the importance and safety of polio vaccination, President Mamadou Tandja himself traveled to southern Niger in 2004, urging residents to cooperate with campaign volunteers and give the vaccine to their children (Donnelly 2004). For many Nigérien parents “Vaccinons nos enfants!” (“Let’s vaccinate our children!”) became a mantra of sorts, helping raise the overall polio vaccination...

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