Kenya's health authorities announced on Monday they would conduct mass measles vaccination campaign from Saturday in an effort to prevent infant and child deaths.

The country's Director of Medical Services James Nyikal said following the deaths of 41 children due to the outbreak of the killer disease, the emergency immunization exercise will take place in 16 districts across the country.

The campaign, with support from the partners, aims to vaccinate thousands of children between the ages of nine months and five years, about 40 percent of the country's population.

"So far 1,600 cases of measles have been reported countrywide with Nairobi recording the highest deaths of 16 children," Nyikal told a news conference in Nairobi.

Nyikal said the exercise will target even children who had earlier been immunized and would cost 70 million shillings (about 1 million U.S. dollars) provided by the World Health Organization and UNICEF.

The country's top physician said the strain of the disease being experienced in the east African nation was not the usual one.

He said the jab to be used was very effective and called on parents to avail their children in any health facility in the country for immunization free of charge.

The number of reported measles cases has drastically reduced from 11,000 cases in 2003 to less than 20 cases in 2004.

But with inadequate routine measles immunization coverage among the infants (below 80 percent), he said, measles came up with a bang in September 2005.

The WHO Country Representative Peter Eriki said the organization would mobilize resources to help Kenya contain the disease.

Measles, a highly contagious disease, can quickly spread through an inadequately vaccinated community.

The disease can kill children directly, or, more often by weakening their immune systems, making them susceptible to a host of other infections.

Globally, measles kills nearly 1 million children each year, with 450,000 in African countries alone.

Currently, three out of four children in Kenya are adequately vaccinated against measles, but at least 95 percent of children must be protected to markedly reduce measles cases and deaths.

Source: Xinhua