(SomaliNet) After discovering two more cases of polio in a camp mainly for Somali refugees, Kenya said on Thursday it would vaccinate about 250,000 children against the killer disease,-Reuters.
| Unless the Islamicist Courts rule otherwise, which they might. |
According to the set programme, Kenya's vaccination campaign will target children under 5 years of age living along Kenya's long and porous border with Somalia, after the virus was brought in by a 3-year-old refugee girl from the Somali port of Kisamayo.
Kenya's Director of Medical Services James Nyikal said two other cases had been detected in the vast Dadaab refugee camp, home to about 160,000 refugees from Somalia. "The government also launched a vaccination programme for children under 5 years of age entering the country from Somalia," Nyikal said at a press conference while announcing measures to deal with the disease which has re-emerged in the east African country after 22 years.
| Just reappeared out of the blue, it did. |
In September, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that the three Horn of Africa countries of Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia would vaccinate nearly 3 million children in the region against the malady. WHO reported that polio returned to Somalia last year and 215 cases have so far been confirmed. Meanwhile, Ethiopia has reported 37 cases since polio reappeared there in 2004. |