Raila Odinga and Ford Kenya leader Moses Wetangula. [Photo/ The Standard]
The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) have dismissed Raila Odinga’s claims that the tetanus vaccine in Kenya has a sterility hormone. On Monday, Mr Odinga, the NASA presidential candidate made allegations, which political analysts have described as a distraction ahead of the October 17 election, that laboratory tests from a number of tests had shown that the tetanus vaccine had traces of a hormone that would render the recipients infertile.“Hundreds of our girls aged between 14 and 49 years old will not have children because of the state sponsored sterilization project that was sold to the state as tetanus vaccination,” said Odinga.But a statement from WHO and Unicef said the ODM leader’s allegations were not backed by any evidence, and were likely to endanger a generation — by discouraging Kenyans from getting the vaccine. “These grave allegations are not backed up by evidence, and risk negatively impacting national immunization programmes for children and women,“ the statement from WHO and Unicef read in part.“We have taken note of test results claiming to show levels of hCG in samples submitted to some clinical laboratories. However it is important to note that testing for the content of a medicine, e.g TT Vaccine needs to be done in a suitable laboratory, and from a sample of the actual medicine/vaccine obtained from an unopened pack and not a blood sample,” the UN bodies said.They went ahead to assure Kenyans that the vaccines are safe. “ WHO and UNICEF confirm that the vaccines are safe and are procured from a pre-qualified manufacturer. This safety is assured through a three-pronged global testing system and the vaccine has reached more than 130 million women with at least two doses of TT vaccines in 52 countries.” The NASA presidential flag-bear has get to respond to WHO and Unicef’s comments.