Kenya launches massive measles vaccination drive for children, women

Kenya's health ministry on Monday launched a measles-rubella and tetanus immunization exercise across the East Africa nation, targeting 19 million children between the ages of 9 months and 14 years and over 800,000 women.

The ministry said the exercise, which was the largest immunization event in history, was being conducted across all government health centers, selected churches and schools in high-risk counties.

Health Principal Secretary Nicholas Muraguri said the immunization campaign will run till May 24 and the children will get jabs of a new combined vaccine, which offers them double protection against measles and rubella.

Measles is a highly infectious disease caused by a virus with complications such as severe diarrhoea and pneumonia, ear infection, brain damage and blindness while rubella can cause serious health complications to newborns such as birth defects, including heart problems, loss of hearing, eyesight and brain damage.

These diseases can spread easily through coughing and sneezing.

Muraguri revealed that up to 400 children die from Neonatal Tetanus every year.

He added that some practices by people living in the targeted counties, such as putting fresh cow dung, lizard droppings or ashes to the cords of newly born babies, put the children at high risk of tetanus, an infection characterized by muscle spasms and caused by bacteria getting into a wound.

"They believe that it will stop the bleeding but risk contaminating the cord and infecting newborns in the process," he said. Endit