More Kenyan children to get malaria vaccine

The Ministry of Health will expand the use of malaria vaccines within the endemic lake region from June, Health CAS Rashid Aman has said.

Children living in the region aged six months to 14 years are eligible for the vaccine’s four doses.

Speaking on Wednesday April 20 during a media briefing, Dr Aman said the move to vaccinate more children within the sub-counties in the region was advised by a positive advisory from the Kenya National Immunisation Technical Advisory Group.

“I again appeal to all parents and caregivers with children aged six months to 14 years and living in eligible malaria-endemic sub-counties to visit their nearest health facilities or selected immunisation sites for the children to receive the malaria vaccine for free and to make sure that the children receive all the four recommended doses of the vaccine,” the CAS said.

The vaccine can prevent four out of 10 malaria infections and prevent severe malaria by more than 30 percent in the 6-24 months age group.

Late last year, the World Health Organisation made a historic recommendation urging widespread use of the malaria vaccine among children in sub-Saharan Africa and other regions with moderate to high malaria transmission.

The CAS also urged caregivers to continue using the other recommended malaria interventions alongside the vaccine.

In 2019, Kenya pioneered the use of the vaccine in some sub-counties in malaria-endemic counties around the lake.

Since then, more than 750,000 doses of the vaccine have been administered to children in these counties. 275,000 Kenyan children have received at least one out of the four scheduled doses of the vaccine, while over 45,000 children have received the entire course of four doses.

In 2021, 14 million malaria diagnostic tests were conducted, while five million malaria cases were treated. The government provided Sh1.2 million to procure malaria diagnosis and treatment commodities to achieve this.

In malaria prevention, over 324,000 pregnant women living in malaria-endemic areas of the lake and coast counties received intermittent preventive treatment for malaria.

In the coming months, the government, through the National Malaria Programme, will spend part of Sh800 million of the malaria budget to implement the programme.

The funds will be used for large-scale indoor residual spraying in Kilifi, Kirinyaga and Kisumu.

On World Malaria Day last year, the Ministry launched a mass net distribution campaign in 27 counties with the highest burden of malaria.

According to Dr Aman, between May and December 2021, 16 million long lasting insecticide treated nets were distributed to households in these counties.

These nets protect an estimated 25 million people sleeping under them every night.

Further, the ministry distributed 1.8 million of the bed nets in 36 counties to pregnant women and children under a year old -- the groups most vulnerable to adverse outcomes of malaria infection.

“I am pleased to report that despite the constraints imposed by the Covid-19 containment measures in force then, the bed net distribution campaign achieved 100 percent coverage,” the CAS added.

Together with county governments, the ministry continues its current indoor residual spraying programme for households in Migori and Homa Bay Counties, offering protection to 2.1 million residents.

This programme is likely to be expanded soon to other counties in the group of malaria-endemic lake counties.

In the effort to end malaria, Dr Willis Akhwale, the senior malaria adviser at the African Leaders Malaria Alliance, said countries are digitalising their Malaria data.

“These data must be available to the community behold we who sit here and think data, good graphic, good analytics, the citizen must understand that the problem is within their locality and be empowered to take action,” Dr Akhwale said.

According to him, 13 countries are already sharing their scorecards, while eight countries have shared their good practices.

The scorecard will be integrated into the Kenya Health Information Systems.

“Here in Kenya, we are happy to say that we have already deployed the malaria scorecard, among other scorecards. We also piloted the community scorecards that look at major issues across the spectrum at the community level, and the scorecard is being integrated into the Kenya Health Information Systems.

Further, Kenya is among five countries in Africa with a fully operational end Malaria council.

“The idea is to mobilise additional domestic, public and private sector resources to reduce the gap in implementing the Kenya Malaria Strategy.