•The coverage had dropped to the dangerous, 15-year low level during the General Election year following multiple strikes by nurses, doctors and clinical officers.
• Kenya is also grappling with teenage pregnancies where about 18 per cent of teenage girls were falling pregnant.
Image: JOHN MUCHANGI
Kenya has increased its immunisation coverage from about 63 per cent in 2017 to 80 per cent today, according to the Ministry of Health.
The coverage had dropped to a dangerous 15-year low during the General Election year, following multiple strikes by nurses, doctors and clinical officers.
Health CS Sicily Kariuki yesterday noted the rates were now rising rapidly, surpassing Africa’s average of about 72 per cent. She spoke at a side event to discuss the Universal Health Coverage during the International Conference on Population and Development, which began in Nairobi on Tuesday.
Six out of 10 expectant mothers now receive skilled care at childbirth and more than half receives postnatal care within the first 48 hours.
“There is increased exclusive breastfeeding and deduction of stunting to 26 per cent from 36 per cent,” she said.
The CS however noted that despite the progress, women are still dying during childbirth, and a significant population of children do not survive to celebrate their fifth birthday. She said Kenya is also grappling with teenage pregnancies, with about 18 per cent of teenagers falling pregnant.
“We also live in exciting moments of a youthful population that is demanding for innovative engagement to fully harness their phenomenal potential to power development,” she said.
In the ICPD yesterday, leaders also began unveiling their commitments to ending preventable maternal death, meeting women’s demand for family planning, and stopping violence against women and girls by 2030.
The three-day Nairobi Summit on ICPD-25 is taking place 25 years after the landmark International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, where 179 governments adopted an action plan for women’s empowerment and sexual and reproductive health for all.
“Since the Cairo ICPD, we have put women and girls at the centre of global development. This has paid off time and again. That ICPD vision is still far from reality, and that journey that began 25 years ago in Cairo is far from over,” UNFPA executive director Natalia Kanem said at the start of the summit.
“It’s now time to finish that unfinished business.”
Hosted by the Governments of Denmark and Kenya and UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency, the summit is mobilising the political will and securing the financial commitments urgently needed to make sexual and reproductive health a reality for everyone, everywhere.
“Among Kenya’s many commitments are actions to accelerate equality, equitable access and availability of reproductive health service for women and girls,” Kenya's Foreign Affairs PS Macharia Kamau said.
Denmark’s Development Cooperation Minister Rasmus Prehn said, “We will continue to be among the major donors in the world in support of the ICPD Agenda, in particular of women and girls’ sexual and reproductive health and rights.
"Denmark will continue to work at the very front together with partners. If we want to reach the 2030 agenda, we must fulfil the promise of Cairo.”
(Edited by F'Orieny)