Children have to wait longer for influenza vaccine

Children under five years will have to wait for months before the Government includes influenza vaccine in the national immunisation programme, State sources say.

Even as experts call for availing of the vaccine in the Kenya Expanded Programme on Immunisation (KEPI) with the recent outbreak, sources say certain measures have to be put in place before that happens.

Influenza has spread across two counties in Rift Valley resulting in 39 deaths and 296 illnesses especially in children below five years.

The Division of Vaccine and Immunisation at the Ministry of Health is mandated to enhance access to traditional and new immunisation services and provide effective and potent vaccines. Since it has not yet officially included influenza vaccine in its national programme, Kenyans may have to contend with private health facilities for now as a source of the flu vaccine. On average, a dose costs between Sh600 and Sh1,000 per at private facilities.

To effectively protect oneself from the flu, public health experts advise that a dose of the vaccine is given every year due to the ever-changing nature of the influenza virus.

With the recent outbreak, experts are calling on speeding up of a preventive strategy.

Prof Wallace Bulimo, a virus specialist at Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri) stresses on the critical role of the vaccine’s urgent availability to contain impending influenza outbreaks.

“We should monitor if these viruses are still matched to the WHO-recommended vaccine and if they are still sensitive to the currently available influenza drugs,” he says noting that influenza viruses are ever-changing.

Also known as the flu, the disease is seasonal and the prevailing strains circulate within populations. In Kenya, the flu season peaks during the rainy and cold season, says Prof Bulimo.