Anti-polio campaign targets 4.3m children

An emergency polio immunisation campaign will be conducted in 22 counties next week following an outbreak of the disease in Garissa that has left six people paralysed.

The victims include two 19-year-olds, two children aged four years and one year and a four-month old child in the Dadaab refugee camp.

The July 3-10 campaign targets 4.3 million children aged five years and below from July 3 to 10, according to the director of Public Health, Shahnaz Sharif.

“The campaign will be conducted in 127 districts within 22 counties while a repeat exercise in the same counties will be held on August 17 to 21...,” Dr Sharif said Thursday in Nairobi.

“In these campaigns, we hope to reach 4.3 million children under five years. However, at the Dadaab refugee camps, everyone will be immunised,” he said.

At the Coast, the exercise will be conducted on July 3 and in Nairobi on July 6.

Dr Sharif, who was accompanied by the ministry’s Disease Prevention and Control Department head, Dr Willis Akhwale, said this was the fourth time that the country was experiencing a polio outbreak in recent years.

“The first outbreak occurred in 2006 and resulted in two cases in Dadaab refugee camps; the second in 2009 and led to 19 cases in Turkana County while the third one was in 2011 where one case was reported in Migori County.”

Meanwhile, the ministry will introduce a second dose of measles vaccination for children aged 18 months from July 1 in all health facilities countrywide.

Dr Sharif said the second dose of the vaccine would ensure that children receive adequate protection against the disease and control any recurrent outbreaks.

While periodic nationwide vaccination campaigns are successful, they have become progressively more difficult to conduct due to rising costs, he said.