No, Bill Gates' vaccines did not bring polio, HIV, or mpox to Nigeria

Context

A Facebook post (archived here) with a photo of Bill Gates claims that polio did not exist in Nigeria before "he brought in his vaccines to bear about 3 decades ago." According to the user, the same goes for HIV and mpox.

However, this claim is false. Polio has been present in Nigeria since at least 1970. HIV was originally recorded in Nigeria in 1985, and mpox was first documented in the country in 1971.

In fact

Polio was first identified in industrialized countries in the early 20th century. However, surveys conducted between 1970 and 1980, which assessed the prevalence and effects of polio — a disease that can cause abnormal movement, gait problems, or even irreversible paralysis — showed that polio was also widespread in developing countries. 

One such study, by the Danfa Project in Ghana, found that paralytic polio rates during this period were higher than during the worst U.S. epidemics in the 1940s and early 1950s. This suggests that polio has likely been present in developing countries, including Nigeria, since at least 1970.

After the 1988 decision to eradicate polio, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) intensified vaccination efforts. 

Nigeria, the last polio-endemic country in Africa, recorded its final case in 2016 and was declared free of wild polio in 2020, though vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) remains a concern. Vaccine-derived poliovirus results from mutations in the oral polio vaccine (OPV). Rarely, this mutated virus can spread in under-vaccinated areas and cause paralysis, known as circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2). 

Although the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation supports OPV use, it also acknowledges the risk of cVDPV2 from mutations in the vaccine. To manage this risk, the foundation promotes switching to the inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) in some regions, aiming to eradicate polio while minimizing associated risks.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been a key partner in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) since 2007. It provides financial and technical resources to support vaccination campaigns, community outreach, better polio surveillance, and the development of safer vaccines.

Before establishing the foundation in 1999, Gates says he assumed that all the obvious steps were already being taken to protect children from vaccine-preventable diseases. At the time, he did not invest resources in polio eradication, including vaccine distribution or other related campaigns. 

In Nigeria, vaccine conspiracy theories have hindered polio eradication efforts. Around 2004, false rumors spread in the northern region, claiming that the polio vaccine caused infertility in children. This led to a one-year suspension of vaccination campaigns, causing a major polio outbreak in northern Nigeria and spreading to neighboring countries. Although vaccination efforts have resumed, these false claims persist, leading some parents to refuse vaccines and prolong health risks.

Additionally, the first case of HIV in Nigeria was identified in 1985 and reported internationally by 1986, which was well before the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation began working on HIV vaccines in 1999. Similarly, Nigeria's first recorded case of mpox was in 1971, with an outbreak in 1996. 

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation supports African researchers in responding to mpox by improving disease surveillance and early warning systems to improve public health decision-making. However, the organization did not rename monkeypox to mpox as the post claims — this was done by the World Health Organization, which said the disease's original name played into "racist and stigmatizing language."

The verdict

Bill Gates directed his attention towards vaccine distribution with the founding of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 1999. By then, all three viral diseases had already been prevalent in Nigeria for several years. Consequently, we have marked this claim as false.