Kakamega county recorded 6,686 adolescent pregnancies between January and May this year.
Lugari subcounty has the highest number at 795 followed by Malava and Mumias West subcounties at 565 and 622 respectively. Mumias East has the lowest at 441 pregnancies.
The number of teen pregnancies has been on a steady increase from 4,206 in 2016 to 17, 555 last year.
In most cases, the perpetrators are usually people well known to the victim like an uncle, a brother or a stepbrother and sometimes even grandparents, according to police records.
Some of the pregnancies of girls aged between 10 and 19 have been blamed on boda boda operators, pastors and magicians.
County health services chief officer Beatrice Etemesi attributed the rise in teenage pregnancies to the long period of closure of schools and training institutions over the Covid-19 pandemic.
She said the adolescents have been mapped out by community health volunteers who refer them to health facilities for care.
"We have created specific days in health facilities headed by youth champions who have been trained to reach out to adolescents and give health education to increase access and utilisation of health services by teenagers," she said.
Etemesi said the county was also providing health services at odd hours and during weekends to suit the teenagers at Shibanze and Namulungu dispensaries where there are many teenage pregnancies in Matungu subcounty.
"We have also formed youth groups by lactating adolescents to ensure they access reproductive health and family planning services to prevent subsequent pregnancies," he said.
The department of Health is implementing the interventions in partnership with Afya Halisi, which has launched a toll free line to assist teenagers access reproductive health information.
She said that the county administration had engaged chiefs, assistant chiefs and health care workers through focus group discussions to identify the contributing factors to teenage pregnancies and come up with action points for implementation.
Edited by Henry Makori
