The ministry of health is set to conduct three rounds of emergency polio vaccination campaigns across ten counties targeting 7.4 million children.
The first round of the campaign, targeting children aged five years, will be launched on Thursday 24th to 28th August 2023 with initial focus on Kiambu, Nairobi, Kajiado, and Garissa counties with the aim of vaccinating approximately 1.8 million children.
Speaking during a media and stakeholder breakfast meeting, public health and professional standards Principal Secretary Mary Muriuki, said the ministry of health has identified ten counties with the highest risk of polio transmission, namely Nairobi, Kiambu, Kajiado, Garissa, Kitui, Machakos, Tana River, Lamu, Wajir, and Mandera as the focal points of our emergency polio vaccination campaign.
“Subsequently, the second and third rounds will target 2.8 million children each and will be conducted between September and October 2023 in 10 counties covering Kiambu, Nairobi, Kajiado, Garissa, Lamu, Tana River, Wajir, Mandera, Kitui, and Machakos Counties.” Said the health PS.
The latest campaign follows the detection of 6 poliovirus cases among children in the Hagadera Refugee Camp in Garissa County. The cases were detected by healthcare workers through surveillance activities with stool analysis conducted at KEMRI. According to Muthoni, further examinations conducted in Atlanta, USA, confirmed the virus’s similarity to the strain responsible for an outbreak in a neighbouring country.
