About 4.5 million children to get polio vaccination
A child is vaccinated against polio at Nyeri Town Health Centre on April 12, 2016. PHOTO | JOSEPH KANYI | NATION MEDIA GROUP
What you need to know:
The five-day oral vaccination campaign, expected to cost nearly Sh300 million, will begin on April 1 to 5. It will be given free. Health Cabinet Secretary Cleopa Mailu is expected to launch the campaign in Kayole, Nairobi.
This round of immunisation comes after a similar one in January where 2,972 136 children in 15 counties were vaccinated, according to data from the Ministry of Health.
About 4.5 million children under five years in 22 counties will from Saturday be vaccinated against polio in a move the government says will keep the viral infection outside Kenya’s borders.
The five-day oral vaccination campaign, expected to cost nearly Sh300 million, will begin on April 1 to 5. It will be given free. Health Cabinet Secretary Cleopa Mailu is expected to launch the campaign in Kayole, Nairobi.
This round of immunisation comes after a similar one in January where 2,972 136 children in 15 counties were vaccinated, according to data from the Ministry of Health.
The 22 were picked out as “high risk counties” following a polio risk analysis, conducted every three months. The counties are: Nairobi, Lamu, Tana River, Garissa, Wajir, Mandera, Marsabit, Isiolo, Samburu, Turkana, West Pokot, Trans Nzoia, Uasin Gishu, Bungoma, Busia Kisumu, Siaya, Homa Bay, Kakamega, Elgeyo Marakwet, Nandi, and Vihiga.
Kenya, the ministry says, is among 16 countries worldwide considered at risk of the polio virus.
Dr Philip Muthoka from the ministry’s Disease Surveillance and Response Unit, said the vaccines have already been sent to the counties.
“They were procured and disbursed to counties and training for the county and national supervisors done while that of the vaccinator and volunteers is ongoing,” Dr Muthoka said on Thursday. These vaccination drives complement the routine immunisation programmes in health facilities where children who are 14 months old can get an injectable form of the polio vaccine. Kenya spends about Sh4 billion annually to deliver immunisation services across the 47 counties.
ONGOING OUTBREAK
The ministry says the numerous vaccine campaigns are informed by the ongoing polio outbreak within Africa that potentially exposes Kenya to possible outbreak through importation.
The head of Preventive and Promotion Health Services, Dr David Soti, said the country is on alert and will mobilise resources to maintain “our free polio status”.
Dr Soti cited the government’s move in July last year to destroy more than 1,000 polio viruses that were being used for research at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri) to avoid “accidental or deliberate” release to the public.
Records show that 500, 000 children under five are missed in such vaccination drives, annually, exposing them to preventable diseases such as polio. This is over 2.5million children in five years who are unvaccinated and are at risk of the viral infection.
Polio invades the nervous system and can cause paralysis, particularly in children under five and the elderly.
