KENYA PREPARES TO FIGHT SPREAD OF POLIO

A polio immunization campaign scheduled for early November in Kenya has gained urgency with the identification of a case of the paralyzing disease in a camp for refugees from Somalia, Kenya's Ministry of Health told UN Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN).

A Somali girl was diagnosed at one of the camps, and it is the first polio case reported in Kenya since 1984, IRIN reports. So teams of health workers have been dispatched early to the camps in eastern Kenya in a house-to-house effort aimed at immunizing children who may have missed earlier campaigns and finding others who may be infected.

Kenya's health ministry and three United Nations agencies -- the UN Children's Fund, the World Health Organization and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees -- plan conduct two rounds of polio vaccination campaigns in November and December. The campaign will focus on districts bordering Somalia. Thirty cases of polio have been reported in Somalia this year, according to the UN.