406,000 have received second dose against virus, ministry says
By George Kebaso, July 2, 2021George Kebaso @Morarak
The government has administered the second dose of the Covid-19 vaccine to 406,146 people.
Releasing the latest figures yesterday, National Covid-19 Vaccine deployment and vaccination Taskforce chairman Dr Willis Akhwale said the government intends to administer the second dose to at least 70 per cent of those who received the first dose in March and April.
This, he said, would be possible once the government imports an additional 182,000 doses through the Covax facility this weekend.
“We have noticed that the demand and uptake of the vaccines has shot up.
Last week, we had reports of 52, 000 people being vaccinated in a single day in 200 facilities out of the 600 designated for vaccination,” said Akhwale after chairing a Taskforce meeting.
The taskforce has been meeting to map out strategies of achieving the vaccination targets announced by President Uhuru Kenyatta on Tuesday.
Speaking at State House Nairobi, Uhuru announced an ambitious plan to vaccinate at least 26 million adults by the end of next year.
Frontline workers
“If we can have 52,000 people vaccinated daily in all the 600 designated facilities, we will have around 150,000 persons taking the second dose everyday. The President’s projections are derived from this,” said Dr Akhwale.
Yesterday, the country recorded 376 new infections from 3,831 tests, a positivity rate of 9.8 per cent, up from 8.8 per cent on Wednesday.
“So far 84,432 health workers have taken their second jab at 49.4 per cent. Further, 30,714 security officers, 54,074 teachers, 127,008 persons above 58 years old and 109,918 others have been vaccinated,” read the daily Ministry of Health Covid-19 update.
Dr Akhwale said the government was keen on having all the frontline workers in the priority list for vaccination, but with more vaccines expected from global sources, the next phase will require heightened campaigns on vaccine education and vaccination.
“We started at a slow pace because there was a lot around these vaccines. This partly explains why we have had vaccine hesitancy. But this is going to change with a lot of social mobilisation,” he said.
He predicted the vaccination uptake would increase in August due to the availability of more vaccines.
“Additional vaccines are being registered and the wealthy nations are winding up their vaccinations.
From mid this month, we are starting community outreach campaigns to talk to people about the vaccine,” he said.
On Tuesday, the President stressed the need for mass education on vaccination.
“Some Kenyans have formed certain theories about vaccination and its effects.
Although vaccination is free-of-charge and no one will be forced to get it, some education about it is crucial,” the Head of State said.
He said by Mid-2022, the country would have achieved potential for herd immunity.