Church vs State: Who is telling the truth on tetanus jab for women?

For two weeks now, Angela Muthoni has been trying to filter fact from fiction in the on-going debate over the tetanus vaccine.

A Catholic faithful, Ms Muthoni, 25, has been taking everything said by the church leadership as gospel truth.

The church is against a vaccination campaign by the Government and the World Health Organisation (WHO) — whose final round started last week — claiming it may lead to infertility. But she now finds herself in a quagmire.

“I have discussed with several of my peers and a gynaecologist and I have been left confused as to whether or not to get the jab,” she told Lifestyle. “If the immunisation team knocks on my door, I have no idea what to tell them.”

This is not the first time the authorities are facing stiff opposition from stakeholders over such vaccinations in Kenya and in other countries.

The controversies date back to the 1700s and are largely based on religious beliefs, and suspicion on the real intentions or harmful effects of vaccination.

From smallpox to polio and measles to tetanus, the debate on vaccines is one that is often robust. 

RESURGENCE OF DISEASE

For a long time, medical personnel involved in the polio vaccination in western Kenya have been forced to engage the services of police officers to force members of the controversial Dini ya Msambwa sect to have their children vaccinated.

The sect believes in natural and traditional healing techniques. They say conventional medicine is ungodly and that their God cures their illnesses.

And there were dramatic moments in June in Embu, when police arrested a mother who opposed a polio vaccination.

The woman, who belonged to the Kavonokia sect, said it was against her religious beliefs to immunise the children.

The sect does not believe in modern medicine and says prayers alone can cure all diseases. Many other sect members are said to have gone into hiding to avoid having their children immunised.  

In Pakistan, revelations that America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) used an hepatitis vaccination programme to help locate Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 2011 has helped to harden opposition to such health initiatives.

It is said that Dr Shakil Afridi, a local doctor running an immunisation programme, visited the Abbottabad compound where bin Laden was holed up weeks before US Special Forces killed the terrorist leader.

Dr Afridi was looking for DNA from children in the compound and is believed to have given US intelligence agents material that he obtained during vaccination.

This year, the CIA said it would stop using immunisation programmes as a cover for their operations.

This came amid reports of a resurgence of polio cases in Pakistan, a country once thought to be on the verge of eradicating the deadly disease, as Talibans attacked immunisation workers, claiming they were American spies and that the vaccines could result in infertility.

At least 56 workers were killed between December 2012 and May 2014.

In northern Nigeria, Muslim leaders have for years opposed polio vaccination, claiming the vaccine was contaminated and could cause infertility.

The standoff has sometimes turned violent. In February last year, nine female polio vaccinators were shot dead in two incidents at health centres in northern Nigeria.

COVER-UP

Not even developed countries such as the US have escaped the vaccination controversies.

For example, in August this year, a study Focus Autism Foundation concluded that African-American boys were more at risk of autism if they were given the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine before the age of two.

The authors said researchers at the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention knew about the link in 2004 — and covered it up. The allegation was later discredited although people had started to boycott the vaccine.

The concerns of the Catholic Church in Kenya appear similar to those in Nicaragua, Mexico and the Philippines in the early 1990s.

Human Life International, an American-based Roman Catholic activist pro-life organisation, claimed to have analysed the vaccines in those countries and established that they contained hCG, which they said could cause infertility.

The Kenyan Catholic leaders say a similar vaccine had been administered in Philippines, Nicaragua and Mexico, which vaccinated women against future pregnancies.

However, for women like Sophie Kimeu and Elizabeth Melita, the church’s allegations do not hold water.

The two Kajiado-based women have been receiving the vaccine since September last year and they both have given birth.

“I was vaccinated in September last year and gave birth two months later. This vaccine is not for family planning because my pregnancy would have terminated,” said Ms Kimeu.

Ms Melita completed her dose on Thursday, having started it in September last year. She gave birth in May this year.

But the church is adamant that they commissioned laboratory tests on samples of the vaccines and ascertained that they were risky.

Bishop Paul Kariuki Njiru, the Catholic Health Commission chairman, alongside his colleagues Bishop Joseph Mbatia and Dr Stephen Karanja of the Kenya Catholic Doctors Association, have been at pains to explain details of the research.

Bishop Kariuki said: “We have irrefutable proof that the tetanus vaccines administered on girls and women in March 2014 contained Beta hCG group.

When this, together with the tetanus antigen, is injected to a non-pregnant woman, she develops antibodies against both tetanus and hCG.

Therefore, when she gets pregnant her body will produce anti-hCG antibodies, which makes her incapable of sustaining a pregnancy.

This then becomes a permanent population control tool.”

Dr Sammy Kyalo, a Nairobi-based consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, said that, if present, the Beta hCG would indeed cause a miscarriage.

“However, I cannot confirm whether or not the substance is in this vaccine because I haven’t done any lab tests,” he says.

SUSTAINING A PREGNANCY

The hormone is produced normally by a pregnant woman’s body to sustain a pregnancy.

“But when administered as a vaccine to a woman who is not pregnant, the body produces anti-bodies that fight off this all-important hormone,” Dr Kyalo said.

“So when a vaccinated woman becomes pregnant and the body attempts to produce this pregnancy-sustaining hormone, it is fought viciously by the anti-bodies and there is only one outcome: miscarriage.”

To end the hullabaloo, Dr Kyalo proposes that the government and WHO should subject the Tetanus Toxoid Vaccine to an independent analysis for the bishops and Kenyans to rest assured that it does not contain Beta hCG.

The WHO Regional Office for Africa had not responded to questions on the safety of the vaccine by the time of going to press.

But a section of Muslim faithful has broken ranks with the Catholic Church and supported the tetanus jab.

Dr Sheikh Abdulatiff Sheikh, the chairman of the Family Resource Centre at Jamia Mosque, told Lifestyle that women should allow the vaccination after consultations proved there was no cause for concern.

“The Muslim stand is that since it (vaccination) is for betterment of all women, especially because during delivery there is a lot of use of sharp metallic objects, then we have to support and advocate its use,” said Dr Sheikh.

He added: “Unless it is proved  otherwise, for now we have told Muslim women to go for the vaccine.”

He said their belief is that the Government would not administer something harmful to its citizens because it would expose itself to lawsuits.

“It is unfair and illegal to sterilise women without their consent,” he said.

The Head of the Immunisation Technical Group at the Ministry of Health, Dr Collins Tabu, also dismissed the claim by the Catholic Church as unfounded.

“There is no other additive in the vaccine other than the tetanus antigen, which helps a person produce antibodies against tetanus and thus protect the body. It does not have the said hCG as it is also given to pregnant women and men too. We have used it in the country for 30 years,” he says.

NO CURE

“There are women who were vaccinated in October 2013 and March this year who are now expectant. Therefore, we deny that the vaccines are laced with contraceptives. We have already vaccinated about a million people against our target of 2.3 million.”

Dr Tabu challenged the church to publish its research findings and clearly show which samples they used, the facilities they acquired the samples from, and the labs they conducted their research in.

To avoid the current standoff, Dr Kyalo said the Government ought to have laid a proper foundation  justifying the campaign.

“In the case of polio vaccine, the Government carried out a campaign explaining the problem and why we needed to stamp it out. The same ought to have happened in this case,” he said.

Kenya is among 28 countries that are yet to achieve the tetanus elimination targets; and, according to the Ministry of Health, a child dies every day from tetanus in Kenya.

Dr Kyalo maintains that all pregnant women must be vaccinated against tetanus, a disease he said has no cure.

 “But what is not clear in this campaign is: ‘are they using the normal vaccine which we use on everyone else or it’s a special one?’” he asked.

As the debate rages, Dr Kyalo explains that women should  have no problem conceiving after getting the regular tetanus vaccine.

Fr Patrick Kinyanjui of the Reformed Catholic Church in Kenya opposes the bishops’ claims, saying they are not qualified to speak on the matter.

“Do they understand the pain of losing a child? Do they know how it feels to watch your child cry endlessly at night and you don’t know what’s ailing them?” posed, Fr Kinyanjui, who left the Roman Catholic after getting married.

He said his wife had given birth even after being vaccinated against tetanus.

POPULATION CHECK

“The priests have no experience on what women and children go through. I say let the matter be dealt with by people who know where the shoe is pinching,” he said.

The campaign is targeting 16 counties which the government considers to be at most risk as home deliveries were common and there were high chances of neonatal tetanus.

Fr Kinyanjui says people should check the population growths in the three countries to ascertain whether the claims were true.

Philippines’ population stood at 98.4 million as at last year from 62 million in 1990. Mexico’s population has also grown from 86 million in 1990 to 122 million while that of Nicaragua has surged from 4.1 million to six million last year.

Last year, the Catholic Church in Kenya was again engaged in a huge fight with Catholics for Change, a US-based organisation, which ran running advertisements urging them to use of condoms. 

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MORE ABOUT THE VACCINE

Questions the church is asking

1. Is there a tetanus crisis on women of child-bearing age in Kenya? If this is so, why has it not been declared?

2. Why does the campaign target women of 14 - 49 years?

3. Why has the campaign left out young girls, boys and men even though they are all prone to tetanus?

4. In the midst of so many life-threatening diseases in Kenya, why has tetanus been prioritised?

The vaccine:

•  Is given free of charge in any health facility.

•  It is administered as an injection into the left upper arm

•  Same vaccine used in antenatal clinics, vaccination campaigns.

•  Been in use in Kenya and globally for 30 years

Composition

The WHO provides that the tetanus dose contains:

•  Purified Tetanus Toxoid (disease causing organisms that are treated to destroy their toxic nature but capable of inducing the formation of antibodies on injection).

•  Aluminium hydroxide.

•  Thiomersal.

•  Sodium chloride.

•  Water. 

Tetanus:

•  Caused by a bacteria, Clostridium Tetanii, mainly found in the soil.

•  Causes painful muscle spasms & stiffness (lock jaw disease), fever, sweating, inability to eat, swallow or function normally.

•  Affects all age groups, more common and deadly in newborns, because of low immunity and umbilical cord wound.

•  If the muscles of the chest and throat are affected, then a person may find it difficult to breathe and could suffocate.

Targeted counties:

Mombasa, Kilifi, Baringo, West Pokot, Turkana, Marsabit, Garissa, Wajir, Mandera, Trans Nzoia, Uasin Gishu, Meru, Narok, Kajiado, Samuru, Laikipia.