Los Angeles Times

Marking a year without polio

- — times wire reports

Once stigmatize­d as the world’s polio epicenter, Nigeria celebrated its first year with no reported case of the crippling disease, having overcome obstacles varying from Islamic extremists who assassinat­ed vaccinator­s to rumors that the vaccine was a plot to sterilize Muslims.

Just 20 years ago this West African nation was recording 1,000 polio cases a year, the most in the world.

The last recorded case of a child paralyzed by the wild polio virus that is endemic in Nigeria’s impoverish­ed and mainly Muslim north was July 24, 2014.

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