The Politics of Polio in Northern Nigeria

Anthropologist Renne (Univ. of Michigan) provides an insightful analysis and a detailed historical background of the controversial campaign to eradicate polio in northern Nigeria. Her important study reveals how Western public health experts misunderstood the epidemiology of polio in Nigeria and shows how this contributed to the way local people negatively perceived the campaign to eradicate polio from 1988 to 2009, ultimately undermining its effectiveness. As Renne argues, because their children faced even greater threats from malaria and measles, Nigerians saw the Western obsession with polio as misguided. She shows how international efforts to prioritize northern Nigeria as part of a global polio eradication program impinged on more pressing needs for a broad-based public health campaign. In the context of tensions between Nigerians and the West, many people were suspicious of intrusive public health initiatives and opposed them as part of broader political expressions. Renne also situates the campaign in the wider framework of new trends in public health that emphasize specific disease eradication and technology. This well-written work complements similar studies, such as Randall Packard's White Plague and Black Labor (1989) and Luise White's Speaking with Vampires (2000). Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. - Choice