Health ministry: Triple polio doses were meant to cover ‘loophole'

The Health ministry has cited precaution as the reason behind the recent multiple campaigns against polio, where children in 12 counties have received up to three doses in quick succession.

Many parents have been wondering why their children have had to receive oral doses within days of each other.

Now Afya House headquarters, Nairobi, officials say it is because they wanted to be sure that all the children have been immunised.

PROTECTION
Dr Daniel Langat, the head of disease surveillance at the Health ministry, said Kenyans had no reason to worry about the multiple doses being given to children, adding that it was aimed at maximum coverage.
“When you receive a vaccine for the first time, it is not absolute that you will get immunity or protection against the respective disease targeted,” he said.
He explained that this was because vaccines do not always enable the bodies of immunised people to build up protection with just one dose.

POPULATION
“The efficacy or ability of vaccines to offer protection is at around 85 percent. This means that for every 100 people we vaccinate, 85 will develop protection from the first dose but the other 15, whom we may not know, will not,” he said.
Dr Langat gave this as the reason behind the multiple doses given to children under five years.
“The more times you give the vaccine, the more certain you will be that you have covered the target population.”

ANALYSIS
The third round of the vaccine campaign targeted 12 counties and ended on Wednesday. Sponsored by the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) and the World Health Organisation (WHO), the campaign targets immunising 2.8 million children under five years in Kiambu, Kajiado, Kitui, Isiolo, Meru, Machakos, Wajir, Busia, Mandera, Tana River, Lamu and Nairobi counties.
According to Dr Langat, the campaign was initiated after the discovery of live polio samples in Nairobi’s Eastleigh area in March. “Our immunisation campaigns are based on quarterly risk analysis.

INFECTION

This year, we selected the 12 counties seen to be at greatest risk of polio infection,” said Dr Langat.

He added that counties bordering Ethiopia and Somalia were included in the campaign since the last 14 known cases of the virus were reported as having crossed into Kenya from the north.

The latest campaign has been blighted by severe reaction by a four-year-old girl in Nairobi’s Kahawa West, who developed sores after being given the polio vaccine last weekend.

SAMPLES

“Countries that lie in the migratory path from Somalia — like Kitui and Isiolo — also had to be included in the campaign, as there is a lot of movement of people across the border into these areas. Nairobi also made it to the list as the samples had been discovered in Eastleigh, in addition to adjacent counties like Machakos and Kiambu,”said Dr Langat.
The latest campaign has been blighted by severe reaction by a four-year-old girl in Nairobi’s Kahawa West, whose scary photos have been doing the rounds on social media platforms.
According to the girl’s aunt, Ms Jane Gichuki, she developed sores after being given the polio vaccine last weekend.

REACTION
When they went to hospital on Monday, last week, she said, the family was informed that it was a reaction to the immunisation, and that even if it looked severe, the benefits of being immunised far outweigh the side effects.
On Sunday, Ms Gichuki said the infection had spread to the girl’s one-year-old sister, even as they were gauging the effectiveness of medication given for the sores.
Dr Langat said the vaccines are safe, adding that they had been tested stringently before being introduced into the country’s healthcare system.

HARMFUL
“Before we introduce any medication or vaccine, it must be subjected to stringent testing by our National Quality Control Laboratory, the manufacturers’ laboratories as well as international bodies like WHO and others. There is no way the government would willingly allow harmful medication or vaccines to be dispensed to its people,” he said.