ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the likely predictors of the rejection of vaccination in Nigeria using survey data. The survey data shows that reading science news weekly is not as significant a predictor of opposition to vaccination as feeling informed about new scientific discoveries and new medical discoveries. The data streams, the polio vaccine controversy, the Ebola crises and the survey data show the importance of religion as a competitor for cultural authority in health matters in West Africa. Poliomyelitis, a highly infectious disease caused by a virus, attacks the nervous system of children under five years and can cause total paralysis or death in a matter of hours. The chapter uses media archives to monitor changing attention to science in Nigerian newspapers as a proportion of total news coverage; the competing actors and how their occurrence changed over time during the Oral polio vaccine and the Ebola crises.
