Nigeria’s Muslim-run Kano state said it would restart polio immunizations on Tuesday after tests proved vaccines safe, ending fears its eight-month ban would allow the crippling virus to spread across Africa.

Kano state governor Ibrahim Shekarau said he was satisfied with tests carried out on imported vaccines from Indonesia, after prominent Muslim leaders said last September the vaccines would spread HIV and cause infertility.

“Our government has accepted the report from the experts. We are satisfied with the report and have directed the commencement of the polio vaccination in the state,” he told reporters at a specially called meeting.

“There was nothing religious or political in our argument,” he added.

The state had been under local and international pressure to press ahead with the vaccines, after the boycott helped the virus spread across Nigeria and into 10 other African countries that had eradicated polio.

World Health Organization (WHO) officials said in June that Kano had pledged to restart vaccinations in July, but Kano state officials denied that a timetable had been set.

The WHO had said the rainy season would create ideal conditions for the virus to spread and could worsen the situation, unless the government acted fast.

It said that international travelers to northern Nigeria, the epicenter of the virus, were at high risk and should ensure they were adequately protected against the disease.

The re-emergence of the virus in countries that had been polio-free has been a major setback to a WHO campaign to eradicate the disease - endemic in only six countries in 2003 - by the end of 2005.

Polio, which afflicts mainly children under five years, is caused by a virus that invades the nervous system and can cause total paralysis or death.

“It’s a great day for Nigerian children and a unique opportunity to spare future generations from this crippling disease,” said UNICEF Nigeria spokesman Gerrit Beger.

Several other Muslim northern Nigerian states initially joined Kano’s boycott, but relented after government experts said the impurities in the vaccines were at safe levels.