Thirteen counties have been awarded for making tremendous progress in immunisation performance.
The 13 were recognised by the Ministry of Health on Wednesday for their exemplary performance in ensuring their children are fully immunised, coverage of Pentavalent and Covid-19 vaccines.
They include Nakuru, Nyandarua, Mombasa, Vihiga, Murang’a, Tharaka Nithi, Kirinyaga, Migori, Bungoma, Nyamira, Machakos, Samburu and Nairobi.
Nakuru was awarded for being the best in having a large number of children who have received the required three doses of the pentavalent vaccine.
The first dose is given as a pentavalent vaccine only after a child is six weeks old.
The second and third doses are given at 10 and 14 weeks of age respectively.
Nyandarua and Mombasa were first and second runners up respectively.
Vihiga was recognised as the best in fully immunised child coverage with Murang’a and Tharaka Nithi being named first and second runners up respectively.
Machakos emerged as the best county in HPV Vaccination coverage with Kirinyaga and Nyamira being first and second runners up respectively.
Others include Migori which was named the most improved in fully immunised child coverage.
Samburu(most improved fully immunised child coverage among the arid lands), Nairobi(best in Covid-19 vaccine coverage among adults) and Bungoma(best in Covid-19 vaccine coverage among teenagers).
This comes even as the Health CS Susan Wafula expressed concern over the rising number of unvaccinated children in counties.
Wafula has noted that despite Kenya making significant strides in the overall improvement in immunisation coverage, there are some counties that are lagging behind.
This has been attributed to critical challenges such as insecurity, geographical and social barriers despite the effort by the county teams to reach the children with the life-saving vaccines.
“We need to work together to tackle the challenges in a tailored fashion due to the uniqueness of each county,” Wafula said.
According to the 2022 Kenya Demographic Health Survey, routine immunisation coverage in the country currently stands at 80 per cent.
She urged health workers to focus on increasing the coverage of the second dose of measles, even as they put in place strategies for other vaccines.
