{The Catholic Church has told its members to boycott the polio vaccination until underlying issues are resolved.}<\/p>\n
Health Committee Chairman Paul Kariuki said the church had valid health concerns, which it wants the government to address.<\/p>\n
The bishop of Embu Diocese said during a service Sunday that the church was not opposed to immunisation, but wanted assurance on safety.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, the Director of Medical Services, Dr Nicholas Muraguri, maintained the vaccine is safe.<\/p>\n
He said the drive would continue until August 5, 2015.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur target was 1.2 million children, but we have already surpassed the figure in the drive that started on Saturday,\u201d he told the Nation by phone Sunday.<\/p>\n
Bishop Kariuki asked the State to reveal the findings of tests it claimed to have conducted if it was being honest.<\/p>\n
The cleric said the church is a major stakeholder since it owns over 40 per cent of the health facilities in Kenya.<\/p>\n
At the same time, a Catholic priest on Friday confronted the Masaba Sub-County Assistant Chief, Mr Phanuel Nyagaka at a funeral when he announced the vaccination drive.<\/p>\n
Fr Thomas Menge said the State owed Kenyans an explanation on the safety of the vaccine.<\/p>\n
In a separate interview, the Reverend Victor Mose, a regional AIC administrative secretary for Nyamira and Kisii counties, said the government should be supported.<\/p>\n
{{Daily Nation}}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{The Catholic Church has told its members to boycott the polio vaccination until underlying issues are resolved.} Health Committee Chairman Paul Kariuki said the church had valid health concerns, which it wants the government to address. The bishop of Embu Diocese said during a service Sunday that the church was not opposed to immunisation, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000069327,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[99],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-20293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000069327,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20293.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20293.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20293.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20293.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20293.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20293.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000069327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20293"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=20293"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=20293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}