By DAGI KIMANI , Special Correspondent
The spectre of cross-border epidemics loomed large over East Africa last week, with the confirmation of the first case of polio in Kenya in 22 years.
The case involved a three-year Somali girl in the northeastern refugee camp of Daadab, which is struggling to cope with a new influx of refugees fleeing the rule of Somalia's Islamic Courts Union (ICU). Nearly 40,000 refugees have flocked to Daadab and other camps on the Kenyan side of the border since the ICU began its sweep across Somalia early in the year.
Kenya last reported a polio case in 1984. Somalia had been polio-free for several years up to 2005, when a major outbreak was reported in Mogadishu. More than 200 cases have since been confirmed around the war-torn country. Neighbouring Sudan and Ethiopia have also recently reported outbreaks.
Both Uganda and Tanzania last reported a polio case in 1996. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the risk of further spread of the disease into the region is compounded by the fact that both Kenya and Uganda have immunisation levels for children under one year of less than 90 per cent, the threshold that is needed to prevent a major outbreak. Immunisation levels in Kenya stand at just over 70 per cent while in Uganda they are around 80 per cent, according to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.
Elsewhere, Kenyan epidemiologists are now convinced that it is only a matter of time before the bird flu virus, H5N1, is reported in one of the three East African countries following the disease's outbreak in Southern Sudan. Although less than 150 people have died of bird flu globally, mainly because the disease is hard to transmit from human to human, fears surrounding its outbreak have the potential to seriously undermine the region's poultry industry, which is valued at over $1 billion.
Sudan's northern neighbour, Egypt, reported its latest human case of H5N1 on October 10, bringing total infections to 15. Six of the people affected have already died. Egypt first reported H5N1 in poultry in February, and has now reported the highest number of confirmed bird flu cases in both humans and animals in Africa.
In recent weeks, the risk of bird flu's spread into East Africa has been heightened by the annual southward flight of migratory birds from Europe, which occurs between September and December. Migratory birds were instrumental in transporting the H5N1 virus from China to the rest of Asia and Europe last year, and eventually southwards to several African countries, including Nigeria and Cameroon.
Following the outbreak of the disease in Southern Sudan, where four bird carcasses were in late September found to be infected with H5N1, authorities in both Kenya and Uganda slapped bans on poultry imports from the region two weeks ago. Uganda also announced that all vehicles and machinery entering the country from Southern Sudan would have to be sprayed with disinfectant.
In the case of polio, health authorities in Kenya last week announced an emergency immunisation campaign for children in all the refugee camps dotted across the northeast of the country. This is later expected to be rolled out to neighbouring districts and Nairobi, where there is a substantial Somali refugee population.
Kenya last conducted polio immunisation in mid-September. The second and third rounds of the campaign will be conducted in November and December.
"We will target children below the age of 14 years in the three camps of Kakuma, Daadab and Hagbera," Dr Nicholas Muraguri, a senior official at Kenya's Ministry of Health, said last week. "We will also vaccinate the children against tetanus, diptheria, hepatitis and other childhood diseases."
The spread of polio into Kenya from Somalia mirrors the transmission of measles to Nairobi early in the year.
The disease killed more than a dozen children before it was controlled through an emergency immunisation campaign by Kenya's Ministry of Health with support from Unicef.
Researchers at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri) subsequently established that the virus responsible originated from Somalia.