News Categories: Health and Sanitation

World Immunization Week, celebrated in the last week of April, aims to highlight the collective action needed to protect people from vaccine-preventable diseases.

Under the Global Theme of ‘The Big Catch-Up’, the County Government of Nandi is marking this week with a resolve to strengthen primary healthcare and routine immunization across the county and ensure that no one is left behind.

According to the latest data, Nandi county ranks 8th nationally with 90% of children (age 12-23 months) who are fully vaccinated for basic antigens.

The County Government of Nandi through the Department of Health and Sanitation is building a strong immunization delivery system, sustaining the progress made over the past years and more importantly accelerate the campaign of “The Big Catch Up” to ensure more people, particularly children, are vaccinated and protected from preventable diseases.

The County has put in place innovative immunization strategies to reach the target population and bridge the gap of the number of unvaccinated children under five in the county.

The intensification of routine immunization is to vaccinate at least 99% of children between 9-59 months with Measles Rubella (MR) vaccine including the second dose. The County also is targeting to vaccinate girls aged between 10-14 years with HPV vaccine to protect them against cervical cancer.

Vaccination is one of the most cost effective interventions in saving lives of children, girls and women across the globe including here Nandi County.

The CEC for Health and Sanitation Ruth Koech who’s also the Vice Chair Health CECs Caucus attended the Health Intergovernmental Forum that begun yesterday. The meeting is held quarterly between the Ministry of Health leadership and Health County Executive Committee Members drawn from all the 47 Counties to deliberate on health matters of mutual concern across National and County Governments.

Speaking while officially opening the meeting, Tharaka Nithi Governor and CoG Health Committee Chairperson Muthomi Njuki said that “We must always ensure health services in counties are enhanced as it is one of the primary roles of any government.”

The early detection and treatment of hearing impairment in newborns and infants has a beneficial effect on language acquisition.

Hearing plays a key part in learning to talk. Without speech and hearing it is difficult for interpersonal relationships to develop and thrive.

The current hearing screening process begins with newborn screening.

The County Government of Nandi in partnership with Global Partnerships for Hearing Health and Children’s Speech and Hearing Loss Organization (CHISLO) have established an Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) program. The program ensures that every child born with a permanent hearing loss is identified before three months of age and provided with timely and appropriate intervention services before six months of age. Identifying hearing loss at a very early age is important because children with hearing loss often fall behind their peers in speech and language development, cognitive skills and social skills.

Through the partnership the County Government of Nandi has piloted an infant hearing screening project at the Kapsabet County Referral Hospital and several ECD Centers that targets 0-5 year olds.

A team of ENT specialists have also been trained on and use of the screening protocol developed by the US-based Early Childhood Hearing Outreach (ECHO) program from Utah State University. The County has obtained two OAE screening devices from the organization.

Earlier today, Pete Harris from the Global Partnerships for Hearing Health (GPHH), Utah State in the USA and Steve Kitur from Children’s Speech and Hearing Loss Organization (CHISLO) led a team of ENT specialists from the Kapsabet County Referral Hospital for an outreach program at Ol’Lessos Primary School and at Kapsabet School for the Hearing Impaired.

Over 80 ECD learners were attended to whereas 15 others were referred to the Kapsabet County Referral Hospital ENT Clinic for further medication.

The team also met with the Deputy Governor Dr Yulita Cheruiyot and the CEC for Health and Sanitation Ruth Koech.

TB is a global public health issue with some estimates suggesting that a third of the world’s population carry TB in a latent form. Few of those who carry latent TB will develop the active form of that disease and treatment using multiple antibiotics is highly effective in the majority of cases. The risk of onward transmission/infection only arises where the disease is in the active form in the lungs. Although TB normally attacks the lungs (pulmonary TB) it can affect other parts of the body. Other forms of TB (extra-pulmonary) are generally not infectious to others and for those with pulmonary TB the risk of transmission can be addressed within a few weeks of commencing drug treatment. TB strains that are resistant to antibiotics are an increasing problem and treatment in such cases is both more protracted and expensive.

The County Government of Nandi has started a continuous mass tuberculosis screening to curb the spread of the disease.

The exercise, which is happening as the World marked TB Day commemoration held on March 24.

TB is an infectious disease that spreads through the air from a TB infected person. The disease mainly affects the lungs.

The common signs and symptoms of TB include coughing for three or more weeks, coughing blood or mucus, chest pain, weight loss, night sweating, fever, among others.

The Chief Officer for Health and Sanitation Fredrick Kiptum said that the County Government of Nandi has invested significantly in strengthening the diagnosis and treatment at health facilities to improve Tuberculosis case detection through improving coverage of WHO-recommended rapid molecular tests like Gene X-pert machines now in the county.

The Chief Officer, said the campaign involves door-to-door screening by health teams and hot spot screening/outreach activity by health care workers to reach those who will not be at home at the time of the visit but have increased risk of getting TB disease.

The County Government of Nandi has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with HealthX Africa a significant milestone in the journey towards achieving universal healthcare coverage in the county.

Through the partnership, HealthX Africa will provide its technology platform to enable the County Government of Nandi to digitize its health records, streamline its healthcare delivery system, and improve the quality of care.

This will ensure that patients receive timely and accurate diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up care, leading to better health outcomes.

In addition, the partnership will also provide opportunities for capacity building, knowledge transfer, and skill development for healthcare workers in Nandi County.

HealthX will provide training and support to healthcare workers in the use of its platform, ensuring that they are equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge to deliver quality healthcare services.

Chesumei Sub County residents are a step closer to having enhanced health care close to home as Mosoriot Hospital redevelopment project nears completion.

The residents will have increased access to health-care services as the expanded hospital will include a new operating theatre, a laundry unit, a modern incinerator, a standby generator,  emergency department, medical/surgical in-patient as well as an expanded ambulatory care and oncology unit, maternity and women’s health unit and pharmacy.

The project is being delivered by the County Government of Nandi in partnership with the French Government.

The CEC Member for Health and Sanitation Ruth Koech led a team of contractors for a site visit at the facility.

“We are excited to see this significant milestone achieved for Mosoriot Hospital. I express our gratitude to French Government through FSE France Group and Mediomics for delivering on the commitment to proceed with this greatly needed upgrade to a critical health-care facility. Along with the numerous other improvements to this critical facility, we are particularly pleased to see the modern medical equipment and we are also excited to see the facelift, installation of a standby generator, construction and equipping of a new theatre and a modern incinerator,” said Ruth Koech.

“For our community and Nandi County, it means better health care facilities and expanded health services close to home,” added Ruth.

FSE Group France and Mediomics are two companies selected by the Ministry of Health to carry out installation, commissioning and maintenance of the equipment. They have since trained hospital staff involved in the operation and maintenance of the installed equipment.

Present during the site visit were Raphael de Tramasure FSE France General Manager, Nasser Achta Bertin Technologies, Waste Management, Jean–Luc Willequet FSE France and Joseph Wamunyu – Contractor Mediomics.