Polio vaccination campaign kicks off
A three-year-old boy receives polio immunisation during a past drive in Kibera on May 26, 2021.
At least 1.8 million children under the age of five in Kenya will be vaccinated against polio in the first round of a nationwide campaign. This comes as the Ministry of Health launched the first phase of the polio immunisation campaign in Kiambu County.
Health Cabinet Secretary Susan Nakhumicha has urged parents and guardians to ensure their children are vaccinated.
"I want to appeal to all parents to support this campaign and the vaccines that will be used in this exercise have been tested and approved by the World Health Organization and the Pharmacy and Poisons Board and the National Quality Control Laboratory therefore it is the same vaccine that is used globally and it is safe and effective," she said.
On June 22, the Ministry of Health was informed of the isolation of polio virus from samples collected from three children in Dadaab refugee camp in Garissa County.
While Kenya has been free of wild polio virus cases since 2014, the Ministry of Health has confirmed that it has so far isolated polio viruses from six children in Garissa County, all believed to be from Somalia.
The first round of the polio campaign will target four high-risk counties, namely Nairobi, Kiambu, Garissa and Kajiado.
"The first round is expected to reach over 1.8 million children under the age of five, while the second and third rounds will be conducted in September and October 2023," the CS said.
The World Health Organization has also urged countries in the WHO AFRO region to be vigilant as the region has been declared polio-free.
In the last 2-3 years, Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya and other African countries have experienced polio outbreaks and these outbreaks threaten the continent's polio-free certification status," said Abdourahmane Diallo, WHO Kenya representative.
The World Health Organization has also urged the Ministry of Health to speed up plans to introduce the second dose of IPV, which protects children from polio outbreaks. The ministry is targeting oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2) in the current drive.
The Director General of the Ministry of Health Dr Patrick Amoth said the Ministry of Health would be conducting more awareness campaigns across the country to contain the virus.
"In Garissa, which is the current epicentre of the outbreak, the coverage is 17 per cent, which means 2 out of 10 children in Garissa have been fully immunised. If you look at Kiambu County, 6 out of 10 children are not fully immunised.
In Kajiado, 6 out of 10 children and in Nairobi, which is the capital, 6 out of 10 children are not fully immunised. We have a proportion of more than 3000 children who are either not vaccinated or not fully vaccinated and the ones who are not vaccinated at all is 45,000 every year".
Amoth added that unvaccinated children now pose a huge threat to others.
Kiambu Governor Kimani Wamatangi says his county is well prepared for the polio eradication campaign with the help of more than 4,000 community health promoters.
"What worries us is when we lower the level of vigilance, and the best way to run this campaign is like a relay by handing over the baton to the county governments."
The second and third campaigns will target more than 5.6 million children and include six more counties, namely Lamu, Tana River, Wajir, Mandera, Kitui and Machakos.
To cover more ground, the Ministry of Health, in partnership with county governments, will deploy community health promoters who will be able to go from house to house, schools and churches to vaccinate children under five.
