NAIROBI, 25 March 2009 (IRIN) - A five-day anti-polio campaign, targeting more than two million children in 42 districts, has been largely successful, officials said on 25 March, the last day of the house-to-house immunization project.
"The response has been good and we are likely to reach 95 percent of the targeted children - those aged between 0 and 59 months," Josephine Odanga, the health/emergency officer for the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF Kenya), told IRIN on 25 March.
She said the campaign was an emergency response to a threat posed by two cases of the wild polio virus type 1 detected in February in Turkana district, northern Kenya, which were genetically linked to the virus circulating in neighbouring South Sudan.
Those cases followed two others three years ago, at a refugee camp in North Eastern Province, also confirmed to have been linked to a virus circulating in neighbouring Somalia.
Odanga said: "With this campaign, we hope to create 'herd immunity', that is, reach at least 95 percent of the targeted children in order to develop an immune response in the targeted children."
All districts in Central and Nairobi provinces, as well as selected districts in Rift Valley, were covered in the campaign, undertaken by the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation, with UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO).
Odanga said routine polio vaccination, carried out in health facilities, targets types 1, 2 and 3 - but this house-to-house campaign involved the monovalent vaccine, targeting only polio type 1, as identified by the Kenya Medical Research (KEMRI) laboratory.
Miriti M'Ibui, the Nairobi provincial disease surveillance officer, told IRIN the stop-polio campaign was undertaken following a risk analysis by the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation, with WHO and UNICEF, which found that 42 districts across the country were at high risk of the wild polio virus.
"All the three districts of Nairobi were found to be high-risk areas and we are targeting at least half a million children [there]," M'Ibui said. "For the vaccine to be effective, we need to capture not less than 95 percent of the targeted children; by yesterday [24 March] our coverage was more than 80 percent, we hope to meet our target by the end of the campaign today."
He said the process of moving house-to-house was slow but necessary to ensure comprehensive coverage.
"The high-rise buildings in parts of Nairobi slow the process further as every house has to be covered . but the health teams are working hard to immunize as many children as possible," M'Ibui said.
According to UNICEF, Kenya presented its documentation on polio certification to the Africa Regional Certification committee in 2005 and was in the process of being certified polio-free by WHO.
"Health experts say there is now a real threat of circulation of the wild polio in the country," UNICEF said in a statement. "The government, supported by WHO and UNICEF, have moved swiftly to stop the spread of the viral disease which causes paralysis and has no cure."
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