The Ministry of Health will this week roll out another round of polio vaccination in five counties.
The polio five-day drive which is scheduled to begin from Thursday to Monday next week targets Nairobi, Kiambu, Garissa and Kajiado.
The ministry targets children with the oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2), which is less likely to revert into a form which can cause paralysis.
This comes barely a month after Kenya confirmed three cases of vaccine-derived poliovirus in Garissa.
The Kenyan outbreak was confirmed to be circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2), which is common around the world in under-vaccinated communities.
“The Ministry of Health, in collaboration with UNICEF Kenya, WHO, and other health partners, is set to launch a significant 5-day vaccination campaign against polio in Nairobi, Kiambu, Garissa, and Kajiado Counties from August 24 to 28,” the ministry said in a statement.
The World Health Organisation has previously warned that the risk of vaccine-derived polio in Kenya remains high.
“WHO assesses the overall risk at the national level to be high due to the overcrowded living conditions in the refugee camp, high rate of malnutrition, poor water and sanitation facilities, mass and frequent population movements with Somalia,” WHO said.
It also noted there was an influx of new arrivals to the refugee camp.
Other factors were the late identification of the newly arrived children and the high prevalence of unvaccinated dose children among the new arrivals.
The vaccine-derived poliovirus is a mutated strain of the poliovirus originally present in the oral polio vaccine.
In rare instances, the virus can genetically change and spread in under-immunised communities with poor hygiene and sanitation.
In the coming drive, the ministry targets children with the oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2), which is less likely to revert into a form which can cause paralysis.
