Youths in Nakuru County have raised the red flag over parents who have devised a new way to prevent their children from getting the polio vaccine.
The youths claimed that the parents were marking their children’s fingers with marker pens to avoid arrests for preventing them from getting immunised.
They also appealed to the government to have independent experts to examine the vaccine before administering it to avoid boycotts regarding its safety.
“It is the taxpayer’s money being used to test and analyse these vaccines. They should do it even if it is a hundred times. This will be better than putting our children at risk,” said Margaret Nyawira.
She asked the government to address the controversy being raised by the Catholic Church over its safety.
“The church has never been against the immunisation. We would like the government to analyse the dosage and the contents of the vaccine to end the fears of parents,”
Hamisi Mohammed challenged parents to allow their children to be immunised to prevent them from getting complications in future.
“Failing to immunise the children can result in paralysis,” he said.
The leaders were speaking to journalist on Sunday at Shabab area.
On his part, Nakuru chief Public Health Officer Samuel Kingori assured the residents that the vaccine was safe.
He said they will begin a crackdown on all the religious leaders who have been stopping their children from getting the vaccine.
“We are targeting at least 381,000 children in the five-day exercise,” he added. The exercise started on Saturday and will end on Wednesday.