![[Somalia] Administering polio vaccine in Baidoa.](https://assets.thenewhumanitarian.org/s3fs-public/styles/responsive_large_2x/public/images/204165.jpg.webp?itok=11md0og2 "Health workers have been sent to Daadab, eastern Kenya , to identify children who might have polio symptoms.")
A polio immunisation campaign scheduled for early November has gained urgency with the identification of a case of the paralysing disease in a camp for refugees from Somalia, Kenya's Ministry of Health said on Thursday.
Teams of health workers have been sent to Daadab camps in eastern Kenya on a house-to-house effort aimed at identifying children who might have symptoms of poliomyelitis and immunising those who may have missed earlier immunisation campaigns, said Dr Tatu Kamau, the manager of the Ministry of Health's Expanded Programme on Immunisation.
A three-year-old Somali girl in Hagadera camp, one of three refugee settlements in Daadab, was diagnosed with polio on Friday, despite having undergone all the necessary vaccinations, according to the ministry. The polio case was the first reported in Kenya since 1984.
"Because of this child the area is being gone through with a fine tooth comb," Kamau said.
"Health teams on the ground are going from house to house," she said, adding that those children found to have missed previous immunisation campaigns were being given doses of the polio vaccine on the spot.
The teams were also looking for children who may have come into contact with the sick girl, she added.
Kenya's health ministry, three United Nations agencies - the UN Children’s Fund, the World Health Organization and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees - are to conduct two rounds of polio vaccination campaigns in November and December. The first round will be conducted from 3 to 7 November and the second from 1 to 5 December 2006 in the districts of Moyale in the north, Garissa, Ijara and Wajir in the east, and Mandera in the northeast. Garissa, Ijara, Mandera and Wajir all border on strife-torn Somalia, from where refugees continue to flee into Kenya. Thirty cases of polio have been reported in Somalia this year, according to UN agencies.
All children under the age of five years will be vaccinated against polio, according to Kamau.
The polio scare comes at a time when an increasing number of people are fleeing insecurity in Somalia, a country with low immunisation coverage, to seek refuge in Kenya. On Tuesday, UNHCR made an emergency appeal for US $35 million to meet the needs of the rising number of refugees over the next six months.
An estimated 34,000 Somali refugees have arrived in Kenya since the beginning of 2006, with a dramatic rise in the number of newcomers in the past two months. Those who came earlier in the year said they moved because of food insecurity that gripped much of the Horn of Africa during a severe drought, according to UNHCR.
The latest arrivals have told aid workers they left their country because of rising tensions between armed groups there, including rivalry between the Transitional Federal Government and the Union of Islamic Courts, which has extended its authority to much of southern and central Somalia since it seized control of Mogadishu, the capital, from warlords in June.
About 130,000 Somali refugees had already been living in the Dadaab area since 1991.
As a result of the 2003-05 polio outbreaks in west and central Africa, the illness spread to 16 countries previously free of the disease: Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Indonesia, Mali, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Togo and Yemen.
Poliomyelitis ("polio") is caused by the poliovirus, which enters the body orally, infecting the intestinal lining. It may proceed to the blood stream and into the central nervous system, causing muscle weakness and often paralysis.
In areas with poor hygiene and sanitation, polio spreads through human contact, usually by faecally contaminated water or food, but the virus can also be spread through coughing and sneezing in crowded environments.
Symptoms include fatigue, sore throat, fever, vomiting, gastro-intestinal disturbances, headache and pain in the neck and extremities. Weakness of muscles often leads to permanent paralysis and deformity of the limbs.
jn/mw
Teams of health workers have been sent to Daadab camps in eastern Kenya on a house-to-house effort aimed at identifying children who might have symptoms of poliomyelitis and immunising those who may have missed earlier immunisation campaigns, said Dr Tatu Kamau, the manager of the Ministry of Health's Expanded Programme on Immunisation.
A three-year-old Somali girl in Hagadera camp, one of three refugee settlements in Daadab, was diagnosed with polio on Friday, despite having undergone all the necessary vaccinations, according to the ministry. The polio case was the first reported in Kenya since 1984.
"Because of this child the area is being gone through with a fine tooth comb," Kamau said.
"Health teams on the ground are going from house to house," she said, adding that those children found to have missed previous immunisation campaigns were being given doses of the polio vaccine on the spot.
The teams were also looking for children who may have come into contact with the sick girl, she added.
Kenya's health ministry, three United Nations agencies - the UN Children’s Fund, the World Health Organization and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees - are to conduct two rounds of polio vaccination campaigns in November and December. The first round will be conducted from 3 to 7 November and the second from 1 to 5 December 2006 in the districts of Moyale in the north, Garissa, Ijara and Wajir in the east, and Mandera in the northeast. Garissa, Ijara, Mandera and Wajir all border on strife-torn Somalia, from where refugees continue to flee into Kenya. Thirty cases of polio have been reported in Somalia this year, according to UN agencies.
All children under the age of five years will be vaccinated against polio, according to Kamau.
The polio scare comes at a time when an increasing number of people are fleeing insecurity in Somalia, a country with low immunisation coverage, to seek refuge in Kenya. On Tuesday, UNHCR made an emergency appeal for US $35 million to meet the needs of the rising number of refugees over the next six months.
An estimated 34,000 Somali refugees have arrived in Kenya since the beginning of 2006, with a dramatic rise in the number of newcomers in the past two months. Those who came earlier in the year said they moved because of food insecurity that gripped much of the Horn of Africa during a severe drought, according to UNHCR.
The latest arrivals have told aid workers they left their country because of rising tensions between armed groups there, including rivalry between the Transitional Federal Government and the Union of Islamic Courts, which has extended its authority to much of southern and central Somalia since it seized control of Mogadishu, the capital, from warlords in June.
About 130,000 Somali refugees had already been living in the Dadaab area since 1991.
As a result of the 2003-05 polio outbreaks in west and central Africa, the illness spread to 16 countries previously free of the disease: Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Indonesia, Mali, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Togo and Yemen.
Poliomyelitis ("polio") is caused by the poliovirus, which enters the body orally, infecting the intestinal lining. It may proceed to the blood stream and into the central nervous system, causing muscle weakness and often paralysis.
In areas with poor hygiene and sanitation, polio spreads through human contact, usually by faecally contaminated water or food, but the virus can also be spread through coughing and sneezing in crowded environments.
Symptoms include fatigue, sore throat, fever, vomiting, gastro-intestinal disturbances, headache and pain in the neck and extremities. Weakness of muscles often leads to permanent paralysis and deformity of the limbs.
jn/mw
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