VANESSA VICK PHOTOGRAPHY

Nigeria

Nigeria is a nation with one of the highest burdens of disease in the world. Many of these diseases have vaccines or are easily treatable.

Polio was thought to be on the verge of eradication but recovered in 2004 after officials of three northern Nigerian states stopped vaccinations because of rumors that the vaccine had become contaminated with the AIDS virus, or with pork products or hormones that would render Muslim women infertile.
  
On February 26, 2005 twenty-three countries around the world had polio immunizations with the goal of reaching more than 100 million children.
  
Polio is spread by faecal-oral contact, which makes densely populated areas with poor sanitation like Kano Nigeria at particularly high risk. Northern Nigeria currently has one of the highest rates of polio in the world.
     
  
In Dawakin, Tofa Uma Mustafah and Safiya Ibrahim go door to door in an attempt to vaccinate every child in the area in which they have been assigned.
  
An oral vaccine can prevent polio but must be kept cool or will loose its effectiveness. This makes distribution of the vaccine more difficult and costly to administer.
   
Aminu Ahmed and his wife are both victims of polio. Tragically their youngest son Omar Aminu is also a victim despite having received the vaccine.
     
  
Zatuna Osman is a member of the Polio Victims Association which helped her to buy a bicycle. She used to have to crawl.
   
Lymphatic filariasis is a caused by a parasitic worm and leaves its victims deformed and disabled. This disease affects 120 million people worldwide. The day that Dr. Richards visited Gwamlar, a small village, 75 men registered to be examined for hydrocele a painful swelling of the scrotum caused by fluid buildup.
  
The World Health Organization estimates that 15% of all blindness is caused by trachoma. There are almost 146 million people in the world who suffer from trachoma most of them living in developing countries. Mohammed Suleiman is examined by a health care worker who finds the small white follicles on his eyelid caused by Trachoma.
     
  
Poor hygiene and sanitation are the primary ways trachoma is transmitted but cultural practices also play a part. Adiza Alhasa wears eye makeup called gazelle, which is a common means of transmitting trachoma from one child to another.
   
A traditional healer sharpens a blade that is used to extract guinea worms from effected villagers. This causes major complications and often-permanent disability.
   
In the village of Kwa-al 36% of the children tested positive for Schistosomiasis. It is a parasite transmitted by snails living in slow moving water and usually affects school age children.
     
  
River blindness affects 18 million people worldwide and is spread through a small black fly that breeds in fast moving water. The economic and health consequences of the disease are devastating as adults can’t farm or raise children. Gyobe Saiku a victim of river blindness is helped by her grandson Friday Samuel to get back to her home.
  
Patience Solomon and her son James sit under the new mosquito net they just received.
  
Ministry of health workers show residents of Somji how to treat their mosquito nets with insecticide. The government of Nigeria and the WHO has launched a program aimed at eradicating lymphatic filiaris and controlling malaria both are transmitted by infected mosquitoes.
     
  
Guinea worm is contracted when a person consumes water contaminated with water fleas carrying infected larvae. Hauwa Kulu uses the river to get drinking water, wash clothes and to bathe. Since she had Guinea worm three years ago and was given information about how to avoid infection she now filters her water.
   
The Carter Center began an eradication program to eliminate Dracunculiasis or Guinea worm worldwide in 1986. Since that time the number of cases has been reduced by 98% from 3.5 million to fewer than 55,000 today. In each country cultural barriers had to be addressed.
   
Comfort Ura stays at a case containment center with two of her children. This is the second time Comfort has had Guinea worm. If eradicated Guinea worm will be the first parasitic disease to be eliminated without the help of drugs or a vaccine.