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Kenya Govt: Polio vaccination campaign a success

Health & Science
 Director of Medical Services Dr Nicholas Muraguri

Kenya: The government has said that Kenyans have responded well to the on-going polio immunisation drive despite a boycott call by the Catholic Church.

Director of Medical Services Dr Nicholas Muraguri said that by Monday, the third day of the immunisation campaign, at least 4 million children had been immunised across the country against the target of 3.6 million.

He expressed confidence that by the last day of the campaign, the target of reaching 6 million children will have been reached or even surpassed.

"It is clear that many Kenyans did not heed the call to boycott the campaign and have the confidence that the government and the World Health Organisation cannot give children what is unsafe," he said.

There were fears that the boycott call by the Catholic bishops would have negatively affected the response to the immunisation campaign.

Dr Muraguri said that among the areas that had reported polio outbreaks in the past had recorded high turnouts of children for immunization, including Nyanza (85 per cent), Turkana (86 per cent) and Nairobi (89 per cent).

The first round of the immunisation is being carried at since August 1 to 5 in 32 counties that are considered high-risk for polio outbreak while another round is scheduled for August 29 to September 2 in 11 other counties.

On Monday, The Standard reported that the personnel delivering the vaccine met resistance from staunch catholic faithful in South Nyanza who had heeded the call of their church to skip the exercise. But Dr Muraguri said that the incidences may have been isolated, considering that the overall data from Nyanza was positive.

Muraguri said that despite the differences with the Catholic Church regarding vaccine safety, the government will continue to engage faith-based organisations to ensure that everyone is on board to support critical immunisation campaigns.

The Kenya Medical Association National Chairman Dr Elly Nyaim said frequent public statements by Catholic bishops against safety of vaccines in the country may in the long-term have negative impacts on their uptake despite their proven health benefits.

Polio is a highly infectious disease caused by a virus. It invades the nervous system and can cause irreversible paralysis in hours. It mainly affects children under age 5 whose immunity to diseases is still relatively weak.

The last polio outbreak in Kenya was in 2013 when 14 cases were reported, including two deaths. The Ministry of Health says that the outbreak was only successfully controlled after several rounds of vaccination campaigns.

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