KISUMU, Kenya Oct 7 – The burden of Malaria has reduced by 18 per cent in Kisumu County which is endemic to the disease in the wake of a new vaccine recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).
WHO on Wednesday announced the approved use of the RTS,S malaria vaccine among children in sub-Saharan Africa and other regions.
Liliana Dayo, a malaria program officer in Kisumu County says the drastic reduction in the prevalence of malaria is attributed to the vaccine that was piloted in Kisumu.
Dayo says the announcement by WHO on the vaccine is a big win for the children in Kisumu.
“Over the years we have had reports of children having severe symptoms of malaria, both in the community and in the facility,” she said.
The officer says the severity of the disease has reduced in the last two years since the vaccine was introduced as a pilot in the county.
The recommendations by WHO is based on results from an ongoing pilot program in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi that has reached more than 800,000 children since 2019.
Dayo says according to the Malaria Indicators Survey that was done in 2020 and findings released early this year polled Kisumu at the lowest in terms of prevalence.
“We know that the malaria vaccine has greatly contributed to reducing that burden to this proportion,” she said.
She noted that the vaccine was on trial in Kisumu County during the implementation.
She says five sub counties had been selected to participate in the trial phase with Nyakach and Nyando as controlled sub counties.
During the trials, the caregivers of the children below the age of 24 months realized that those who were given the vaccination were not having frequent attacks of malaria.
“They were even having less severe symptoms, an indication of a break through,” she said.
Dayo says communities must be encouraged to continue using other existing interventions of preventing malaria.
“We have the use of bed nets, which you know we concluded the mass distributions sometimes in April and the primary health care, keeping the environment clean,” she said.
She says the national government must invest in awareness creation on the new vaccine with a call on the communities not to abandon the already existing interventions.
Dayo further noted that the new vaccine will drastically reduce the cost of managing malaria at the household level and at the hospital facility.
“The frequent travel to the hospitals will now be reduced once the children are vaccinated, this will cut costs on transport at the family level,” she said.
Salome Situma, a paediatric nurse at Kisumu County hospital says the number of patients, mainly children seeking medication as a result of malaria, has drastically reduced.
“Even though we might still get cases of malaria, the severity of the disease has greatly reduced,” she said.
Situma says a number of vaccines are available in the hospitals and proper uptake will ensure hospital beds are empty.
“Like pneumonia, vaccines are there, rotavirus is also there and I think the reduction in the number of patients in the ward is as a result of interventions being undertaken,” she said.
She says communities must accept the interventions in place to fight some of the diseases without believing in myths associated with some vaccines, which hampers the uptake.
Malaria has been a primary cause of childhood illness and death in sub-Saharan Africa with more than 260,000 African children under the age of five dying from malaria annually.
