At least 19 million children will be immunised against measles and rubella disease next week, head of vaccinations at the ministry of health announced on Tuesday.
Dr Ephantus Maree asked parents of children aged nine months to 14 years to take their children for the scheduled jab from Monday May 16, 2016.
Deemed
Kenya's biggest ever vaccination campaign, health workers will for the next one week administer the new vaccine called MR, which combines the measles and rubella.
Measles is highly contagious and can kill children directly or by weakening their immune systems, making them susceptible to other infections.
He said the vaccine is safe and advised parents to bring even children who have been vaccinated in the past.
"We are looking forward to beating the 80 per cent reached whenever we conduct vaccinations," Maree said adding that nearly 500,000 children fail to develop immunity for the diseases against which they are vaccinated.
"The
campaign will be conducted mostly in health facilities and temporary
shelters in places like churches and schools," the official said.
“The last time we did measles campaign was 2012 so that means the last three years we have been accumulating children under one year who do not have immunity,” he said.
Kenya does not currently have a rubella immunisation programme although an outbreak was reported in 2014.
Dr Ian Njeru, in a 2014 study, found out that rubella was endemic throughout the country, and many outbreaks may be underestimated or undocumented.
Women within the reproductive age (15 to 49 years) will be immunised against Tetanus to protect future newborns.
Dr Maree said they have continually engaged religious groups on the safety of the vaccines and the ministry expects no resistance this time.
In 2014, the catholic church managed to stop tetanus vaccination of thousands of women after doctors within the church claimed it was laced with birth control hormones.