Turkana county, through the Ministry of Health in collaboration with other partners have launched the Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention campaign.
In its first season, the SMC is being piloted in the county, with the focus on preventing malaria among children aged under five years.
Deputy Governor John Erus said they have been working closely with the National Malaria Control Programme, Catholic Relief Services, and Moi and Duke universities.
Erus said the exercise will be conducted in Turkana Central and Turkana North sub-counties.
“Turkana county is faced with a high burden of malaria, because it shares the border with three countries, that’s Uganda, Ethiopia and South Sudan, resulting to new infections and transmissions due to the movement of pastoralists,” he said.
The head of division of the NMCP, Kibor Keitany, said Turkana was selected because of the seasonality of malaria, which peaks from May to September.
Keitany said the treatment will prevent the children from contracting malaria when bitten by mosquitoes.
Diana Menya of Moi university said the institution has been conducting research in partnership with Duke university to provide data showing Turkana's malaria burden.
County chief officer for medical services, Gilchrist Lokoel, said research confirmed that malaria cases in Turkana increased during the rainy seasons.
“The SMC is a big collaboration we have undertaken by Moi and Duke universities since 2018 to show that there’s malaria in Turkana, because we were classified as a seasonal malaria transmission area and we didn’t benefit from the same prevention strategies from the government.
“The prevalence of malaria in the county is at 39 per cent and SMC has proven to reduce the disease by up to 75 per cent. Currently we are experiencing a high burden. Together with nine other counties, we contribute to 80 per cent,” Lokoel said.
All children between three to 59 months will get the doses for five cycles in a row, to reduce malaria transmission.
The WHO defines SMC as the administration of a curative dose of antimalarial medicine to children at high risk of seasonal malaria, regardless of whether or not they are infected.
At the end of the exercise, the two universities will conduct another study to evaluate the effectiveness of SMC.
This will inform the implementation of similar campaigns across the county, as well as the rest of Kenya.
CRS head of office, Fred Ireri, said they are supporting the initiative by providing tools and commodities to reduce the malaria burden.