Hundreds of polio victims on Wednesday took to the streets of the northern Nigerian commercial city of Kano to educate parents on the need to immunize their children against the disease.

The victims, made up of male, females and children, riding specially adapted tricycles, staged the rally under the aegis of Polio Victims Trust Association, according to the official News Agency of Nigeria.

As part of the enlightenment campaign, they crawled to the emir 's palace and government house, where they expressed their support for government's efforts at eradicating the deadly disease.

Polio could be stopped through immunization "but that it cannot be cured once a child is allowed to become a victim," said Malam Aminu Tudun-Wada, the state chairman of the association, at the emir's palace.

Responding, the emir of Kano, Alhaji Ado Bayero, commended the association for organizing the rally and announced that all district heads had been ordered to sensitize their subjects on the dangers of the polio scourge.

Speaking at the government house, Tudun-Wada, assured Governor Ibrahim Shekarau that the association would continue to support the anti-polio immunization drive in the state.

Shekarau promised to provide a piece of land for the association to construct a permanent headquarters and appealed to parents to allow their children to be immunized against the disease.

The Kano state government banned the vaccines in August 2003 over fears that they could spread AIDS virus or had been adulterated with infertility agents by the western nations allegedly to depopulate the Islamic world in northern Nigeria.

It lifted the ban 11 months later but the virus had spread across Nigeria into 10 other African nations previously declared polio-free during the period. The state and neighboring regions have become the epicenter of the world's fastest growing polio outbreak.

Source: Xinhua