The federal government yesterday released results of clinical tests conducted to verify the safety or otherwise of the Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) used in Nigeria for immunisation, saying the vaccine had been found to be safe and free of anti-fertility agents and HIV.

Minister of Health, Professor Eyitayo Lambo who addressed newsmen in Abuja yesterday said the tests were undertaken in various laboratories in Nigeria and South Africa by the investigative teams set up by the federal government and headed by Professor Umaru Shehu a former minister of health.

He said the tests were conducted in seven laboratories in Nigeria and three laboratories in South Africa. The laboratories in Nigeria where the tests were conducted he said, were the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Research and Development (NIPRD); the National Institute of Medical Research (NIMR), Lagos; NAFDAC; the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Department of Pathology, Zaria, the College of Medicine, University of Lagos; the National Hospital, Abuja and Peak Laboratory Gwagwalada.

The international institutions in South Africa where the tests were conducted, he said, were PROPATH Laboratory, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Pretoria, South Africa; AMPATH private laboratories, South Africa and Pan Drimmelen Laboratories, South Africa.

"The results demonstrated no evidence of any fertility hormones at levels detectable by the most sensitive methods available. Furthermore, these results are consistent with the negative results from the National Hospital laboratories. The occasional reports, by some investigators, of traces of some substances have been proved to be the result of non-specific reactions because less sensitive equipment were used and less stringent standards were observed. Some of these investigators even recommended the use of more sensitive and more specific methods for confirmation," the minister said.

Professor Lambo said he ordered a comprehensive test based on the recommendations of these people and that all tests were conclusive that none of the samples had been contaminated by HIV. "No anti-fertility agents were detected in the samples as interpreted by prominent national and international experts at the meeting as well as confirmed by the laboratory consultants in South Africa."

A review meeting, he said, was held on the results and the summary of their deliberations was held on their results and there was incontestable evidence demonstrating that OPV was safe and that allegations to the country while disturbing, were untenable.

Among those who directed the investigation team were representatives of the Supreme Council of Sharia, Katsina State, the Kaduna State government, the Kano State Government and the minister of health's independent expert committee and NAFDAC.

Asked to comment on the allegation by a member of the Kano State investigation team that traces of an anti-fertility substance were found in the vaccine, the minister said he was not aware that Kano State had released the result of its independent test and that as at last week he was told by Kano State government officials that the result was not ready and that the results had not been made available to him or the federal government.

Profess Lambo said the results of the various tests conducted in South Africa had been sent for review by experts in vaccine production, quality control testing, regulation and safety at the department of immunisation, vaccines and biologicals at the World Health Organisation in Geneva.

The experts, he said, concluded that "despite multiple tests on multiple vials of oral polio virus vaccine (OPV) from northern Nigerian, no trace of the anti-fertility agents that had been alleged to be present in the vaccine could be detected, even at the minimum levels of detection of the highly sensitive means that were applied (i.e double gas chromatography followed by mass spectrometry."