Polio immunization in Bungoma hailed as successful

Written by Rosemary Wachiye

The door to door Polio immunization exercise for children under five years and the administering of Vitamin A has been termed successful in Bungoma South District.

The Director of Medical Health (DMOH) at the Bungoma District Hospital, Dr. Amos Oyoko stated that the process that set off on June 4 is expected to have reached its target of approximately 110,123 children for polio immunization and approximately 102,414 children for vitamin A administering.

“The Heath officers started moving from door to door on Saturday and the process will ends today Wednesday. We hope to have achieved our target of 110,123 children for polio immunization and 102,414 children for vitamin A administering,” said Dr.Oyoko.

He also added that since the exercise started, the Health officers have immunized 56,000 children against Polio and 55,700 for Vitamin A.

“we have so far covered 51 per cent in polio immunization and 49 pc in Vitamin A administering in the district, we hope that by the end of the exercise, we will have reached as many children as possible,” said Dr.Oyoko.

Dr. Oyoko.

He commended the public for the cooperation towards the same and urged parents who were still adamant to cooperate with the health officers to ensure that all children under five are immunized since they are prone to the infection.

“We heard there are parents who claim that since their children were immunized in January, so they should not be immunized again. But I want to inform such parents that this is a different exercise and I urge them to cooperate and allow the health officers to immunize their children,” urged Oyoko.

The challenges the officers are facing are transportation due to the high fuel prices and also the difficulty of accessing some areas that are deep in the remote zone.

“Transportation to the different areas is hard owing to the fuel price increase, but all the same we are trying our level best to reach them all,” said Dr.Oyoko.

 He also reminded the parents of taking the children under five years to hospital or nearest health centres to their homes for routine immunization against other illness.

“It is important for parents to continue taking their children to hospital or nearest health centres to their homes for routine immunization,” said Dr.Oyoko.

He advised parents to be monitoring the growth of their children and to be keen on the symptoms of any illness that may arise and take their children immediately to a health officer, as it’s the only the ministry can assist to curb early mortality in children.