Counties

Mandera lags child immunisation on cross-border Shabaab attacks

polio-er

Anti-polio campaigner Harold Kipchumba administers a vaccine to a child during a past immunisation programme. FILE PHOTO | NMG

Kenya records its lowest child vaccination coverage in Mandera County due to its proximity to the Somalia border, a new study has shown.

According to a report by the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) based in Norway, the regular cross-border attacks by Islamist group Al-Shabaab have dealt a blow to health efforts to ensure universal coverage of child immunisation.

The proportion of fully immunised children in the county was found to be 28 percent, way below the standard national average of 71 percent.

Data shows that if an armed conflict occurs within 10 kilometres from where a child resides, the chances of receiving any vaccinations are 47.2 percent lower. Generally, areas marred by high-intensity of armed conflicts tend to have a slow uptake of child vaccination services.

The findings indicate that conflicts give rise to reduced national-level public health expenditures and pose logistical nightmares resulting in depressed full immunisation rates.

In South Sudan, for example, the combined vaccination coverage against diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus was 75 percent at independence in 2011.

The country, however, recorded a sharp decline to 46 percent by 2014 due to post-independence civil conflicts, World Health Organisation and the United Nations Children's Fund estimates show.

In Ethiopia, Tigray’s gains in health have been watered down to 1990s levels since the November 2020 conflict between the Ethiopian forces and the northern Tigrayan rebels broke out.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, about 70 percent of assessed hospitals and health centres in Ethiopia have either been partially or fully damaged.

This has resulted in over 2.5 million people missing out on essential health services.

WHO estimates that attacks on health care personnel and facilities resulted in 48 deaths and three injuries in Somalia.

“We know what needs to be done, and we have continuously articulated these needs,” said Marleen Temmerman, Director of the Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health at Aga Khan University East Africa.

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