Clinton Mugesi Werema, a polio victim has sued the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops (KCCB) for boycotting the polio vaccine that kicked off last month. He asked the High Court to bar the Catholic Church from further condemning the Ministry of Health’s vaccination campaign against the disease.
The major challenge for catholics in Kenya will be the fear of going against the church’s stance on family planning methods. The alternative may leave millions of children suffering from the incurable disease. But is the Catholic church really wrong for adhering to its doctrines, even if this may be based on speculation?
Natural Family Planning (NFP) is particularly appealing to catholics. However as opposed to what you may think NFP is not contraception, rather, it uses the female body’s natural rhythm of fertility to either avoid or achieve pregnancy. Mr Werema argues that the statements by Catholic bishops against the vaccine translate to a command to their members of the church. While their assertion the vaccine has reactive agents that could cause sterilization in children is yet to be proven, the Catholic church has continued to ask its faithful to steer clear of the new polio vaccine.
A joint testing for polio vaccine was organized between the Catholic Church and the ministry. The ministry invited church members for discussion and requested them to nominate their own laboratory experts, which the church declined and insisted on their unproven system,” he says.
The Catholic bishops, responded to this by stating that the Church carried out independent tests on samples of the polio vaccine being used. It was discovered to contain estradiol — a female sex hormone — which it insists is harmful to both boys and girls. The bishops also claimed the Ministry of Health delayed the conduction of tests after which the ministry wrote to KCCB saying it did not have the capacity to effectively carry this out.
The polio immunization campaign was scheduled for 1st-5th of August in 32 countries while another round will take place from August 29th to September 2nd in 11 countries. So far, the first drive was successful as many Kenyan residents did not heed the directive of the Catholic Bishops and other healthcare experts who have a different opinion on the safety of the vaccine as well as the intentions of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UNICEF.
The National Chairperson of the Kenya Medical Association, Dr Elly Nyaim says; “Polio vaccines have been proved scientifically to protect children from polio. We call on Kenyans to ignore the boycott call and turn out in large numbers to immunize their children from this deadly disease”. “We don’t want to be like Nigeria where polio spread rapidly after religious leaders there campaigned against polio vaccination. The safety of the vaccine is beyond doubt”. “Any attempts aimed at mobilizing the public against taking their children for vaccination is a serious violation of the right of children to health and survival”.
