In Africa, only South Africa has a national child immunisation for the rotavirus disease, a program that started this month. The one-day workshop sponsored by multinational drug manufacturer, GSK was held on Saturday, 15 August 2009.
According to Dr. Zipporah Gatheru, though the vaccine has been in Kenya since 2006, it is only available for a few elite.
Speakers said African Governments should partner with international funding agencies to ensure the rotavirus vaccine is available in their national EPI programs.
"We therefore came up with a call to action which in a nutshell, is to convince key decision makers on child health issues that rotavirus and diarrohea in general is big in Africa. That every opportunity must be taken to deal with it, especially now that we have a vaccine," said Prof. Fred Were, the chairman of the Kenya Pediatrics Association (KPA).
Dr. George Armah from Ghana said in Africa, one out of every four children attending hospital is infected with rotavirus. He said half of those admitted have the disease with one death every minute reported from cases of admission.
Gatheru, with over 20-years experience of mapping out the burden of rotavirus in Kenya while at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) said although majority of rural-based Kenyan families can afford the vaccines, they do not have access to them, nor information on the vaccine and the disease.
She said a third to half of child cases presented to Kenyan hospitals is from rotavirus. She also encouraged mothers to take their children to hospitals, saying the vaccine is applied orally.
A delegate from Chile, Prof Miguel O'ryan said estimates around the world showed that every child will suffer from the rotavirus disease before they turn five years old.
O'ryan said one out of five children will see a doctor because the rotavirus associated diarrohea is significant enough for the mother to see the doctor, while one in every 60 or 70 children are hospitalised because of dehydration.
"Deaths due to the disease because of dehydration occur in one in every 250 to 300 children before their fifth birthday especially in Africa, Asia and the poor countries of Latin America," said O'ryan.
The one-day workshop was held to share scientific information available on the disease and review possibilities of utilising available preventive strategies since a rotavirus vaccine is now available.
