Kenya reports refugee polio case

Three million children are being immunised in the Horn of Africa

Kenya has reported its first case of polio in 22 years, discovered in a three-year-old Somali girl at a refugee camp near the border with Somalia.

The World Health Organization said the virus strain originated in Nigeria but reached Kenya via Somalia.

The girl's mother said her daughter had been vaccinated for polio in the camp where she was born and had never visited Somalia.

The girl has been isolated to ensure the disease does not spread.

Sona Bari, a spokeswoman on polio at the WHO, said more cases might be found at the Dadaab refugee camp.

She said that for every case of polio, there were 200 people who showed no symptoms of the disease but carried and spread the virus.

Eradication campaign

Polio reappeared in Somalia in 2005, after a three-year absence.

More than 200 cases have been reported across the country.

Renewed fighting between militias and the government has sent thousands of refugees to both Kenya and Ethiopia.

The WHO's Fadela Chaib said that outbreaks of polio were widespread among the ethnic Somali population in Ethiopia.

Although the mother of the infected girl in Kenya said her daughter had been vaccinated, Ms Chaib said that until full immunisation is completed, polio can still be contracted.

The WHO launched a worldwide campaign in 1988 to try and eradicate the virus, but failed in its bid to wipe out polio infections by 2005.

The programme suffered a setback three years ago when northern Nigeria suspended immunisation for more than a year.

The virus spread, re-infecting once polio-free countries, but the WHO is confident it is being brought back under control in Nigeria.

Three million children are being immunised this year across the Horn of Africa.

Polio is a highly infectious disease which affects the nervous system and can result in paralysis.

It is transmitted through contaminated food and water, or contact with faeces from an infected person.

It has been eradicated in much of the world but is still endemic in some countries.