Medics warn tetanus has no cure, call for vaccination to save babies

The Ministry of Health, Unicef and a section of child and maternal health specialists have challenged the Catholic Church to engage in a sober debate instead of creating fear over the tetanus vaccine.

The third round of mass vaccination came to an end in 40 out of 61 targeted districts with the government and Unicef reporting a 70 per cent coverage rate.

Child Health specialist at Unicef in Nairobi Dr Peter Okoth, yesterday assured the public that the tetanus vaccine is safe and dismissed claims that it is laced with components that affect fertility and pregnancy.

“The vaccines are manufactured under strict guidelines that are subject to inspection and control in countries where they were produced thus there is no chance to introduce components other than those that make the vaccine effective,” Dr Okoth said in an interview at the Unicef offices in Nairobi.

He added that the source of the vaccine is carefully and independently monitored, ruling out the chances of containing the hCG hormone.

Amidst the controversy that vaccines are laced with population control components, Director of Medical Services Nicholas Muraguri said they were drawing closer to the expected target of 1.6 million women of child bearing age to rid Kenya of the preventable disease.

This came as the ministry instituted a nine-man committee to interrogate and interpret the results from the laboratories that tested the samples from the interested parties and any other source. The team is expected to provide professional advise to the Ministry of Health on safety concerns raised and provide ways to address them.

The government and other stakeholders have welcomed the joint testing of the tetanus vaccine on commonly agreed terms.

Commonly known as lock jaw disease, public health officials fear that the current standoff over the tetanus vaccine could have had a negative impact on the uptake of other immunisation programmes. 

Kenya Paediatrics Association director of research Fred Were, termed claims over the vaccine as ‘unfounded’ given that Kenya is one of the countries where tetanus is a public health concern as other countries have eliminated the disease.

A lead researcher in newborn and childhood diseases, Prof Were cited tetanus as a public health priority disease given low chances of survival in newborns whose mothers had not received the vaccine during pregnancy.

“A good effort aimed at improving the outcomes of both mother and baby will be dampened by the current standoff with a risk of reversing to the terrible neonatal mortalities we saw in the 1980’s,” said the director who is also the University of Nairobi Dean of Students at the School of Medicine.

Kenyatta National Hospital Head of Reproductive Health Department John Ong’ech, told 'The Standard on Saturday' that Kenya has been cited as one of the 25 countries where the preventable disease was still problematic and called for a more aggressive elimination campaign.

“The Catholic church is being paranoid on matters that are not reality, which is detrimental to the current mass vaccination and other of public health concern,” said Dr Ongech.

“God has given us the wisdom to make life more meaningful by preventing and treating diseases, thus the current debate is not based on scientific evidence and transparency should not be upheld,” he added and challenged the Catholic church to be mindful of the mother and newborn at risk of tetanus. “Tetanus is a painful death especially for the newborns. That is why we should provide immunity to the little ones before they are born through their mothers.”

In a separate interview, Dr Peter Karanja declined to answer questions from 'The Standard on Saturday' on the source of the six vials of the tetanus vaccine he claimed to have sampled from six counties in Kenya, reiterating that they were laced with the hormone.

Challenged to provide the batch numbers of the six samples, Dr Karanja discontinued the interview with 'The Standard on Saturday'.

However, Dr Wahome Ngare who is a member of the Kenya Catholic Doctors Association, said the Catholic church was ready to participate in the joint testing to allow for correct interpretation of the results.

“We need to agree on clear guidelines on what kinds of tests this vaccines will be subjected to and the specific laboratories that they will be carried out in so that we can be on the same line of discussion as we interpret the interviews,” he said.

Prof Were and Dr Ong’ech warned that tetanus has no cure and it was important especially for individuals the rural areas to get the vaccine.

Tetanus infection presents as muscle stiffness beginning from the jaw, next is the neck, resulting to trouble in swallowing before it spreads to the arms, legs and abdomen.

Other symptoms include sweating, fever, high blood pressure, restlessness and patients becoming easily irritable. The current WHO guidelines recommend that all pregnant women receive the vaccine, to prevent tetanus and pass immunity to their unborn.