The Ministry of Health on Friday rolled out a measles Rubella vaccination drive targeting seven high-risk counties of Garissa, Mandera, Wajir, West Pokot, Nairobi, Marsabit and Turkana.
The exercise seeks to reach at least 1.2 million children aged between the ages of nine and 59 months.
The World Health Organisation recommends that a target of 95 per cent measles vaccine coverage be achieved for every country yet only 86 per cent of children in Kenya have received one measles rubella vaccine.
This means that nearly one in seven children in Kenya has not received their first dose.
Only 58 per cent of Kenya’s children have received two doses of the measles rubella vaccine which means that nearly half of all children in Kenya have not received the second dose which is needed to ensure long-lasting protection from measles.
According to health experts, measles is one of the world’s most contagious diseases with sore throat, coughing, diarrhoea and eye infection as the common symptoms.
“However, severe complications can occur and are more likely to affect malnourished children and others with weakened immune systems, including pneumonia, blindness, brain infection, paralysis and even death,” Unicef Kenya Ag representative Anselme Motcho says.
It is been warned that measles outbreaks can result in epidemics that cause many deaths, especially among young, malnourished children.
Such malnourished children have weakened immunity to fight against diseases and are hence at risk of severe disease and death.
“Malnourished children have weakened immune systems, leaving them more susceptible to diseases like measles and its severe complications,” Motcho warns.
Unicef has warned that vaccine protection from measles has declined globally since the coronavirus pandemic, which interrupted routine immunisation around the world.
Of concern is that counties saved with severe drought are the ones which have recorded measles outbreaks and have the lowest levels of routine immunisation coverage.
