It’s estimated that over 3.84 million children below the age of ten years will be vaccinated for polio during the immunisation blitz that will commence from this Wednesday for five days, a statement from the Ministry of Health in Kenya revealed. This is prompted especially by circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 especially in areas of high immune vulnerability across the nation.

The campaign aims to reach 2,020,176 children below ten years old and 1,824,680 children below five years of age. Currently four children in the Kakuma refugee camp and the host population have been infected with the mutant virus for which reasons Mary Muriuki, principal secretary in the Ministry of Health noted the significance of the campaign.

Further environmental surveillance conducted also in the recent past returned a polio type 2-positive sewage sample in Nairobi County to warrant that the virus can be found outside the initial identified areas. This has in turn forced the Ministry to be alert especially to counties on high risk in view of similar detections in Uganda’s Mbale District.

Muriuki challenged all the counties to keep reacting and erecting structures that can work effectively to eradicate the disease, saying that vaccination is central to protecting the lives of

children. ,the campaign shows Kenya’s stand in the fight against polio and ensuring that children in this country do not suffer from this avoidable disease.