GARISSA (Halbeeg News) – Kenyan government has announced that its health officials confirmed three polio cases in the Hagadera refugee camp in Garissa County.
The Ministry of Health has begun preparations for the implementation of emergency outbreak response, including rapid implementation of large-scale supplementary immunization activities.
Polio is highly infectious and can spread rapidly through contact with infected fecal material, such as in contaminated food and water.
Infections are generally mild, but one in 200 cases leads to irreversible paralysis. Among those victims, 5-10 percent die when respiratory muscles become affected. The risk of paralysis increases with age. There is no specific treatment for polio.
The risk of healthy individuals contracting polio from contaminated food or water remains negligible, but individuals with compromised immune systems or those suffering from long-term illness may be more susceptible.
It affects mainly the population with low immunity and very poor immunisation coverage. After infection with the virus, it takes an incubation of seven to 10 days.
The World Health Organisation has confirmed through genetic sequencing analysis that the cases are genetically linked to the cVDPV2 circulating in Banadir, Somalia.
The virus, according to the WHO, is common around the world in under-vaccinated communities mostly in the United States and Britain last year.
It is different from the wild poliovirus, which was lastly reported in Kenya in 2013.
According to the World Health Organisation and UNICEF estimates of Kenya’s national immunisation coverage, oral polio vaccine third dose (OPV3) and inactivated poliovirus vaccine first dose (IPV) stand at 91 per cent in 2021.
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