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George Kebaso @Morarak

Kenya will shore up her AstraZeneca vaccine stocks towards the end of the week with a number of European countries, UK included, pledging to release thousands of doses to the country.

From the announcement, up to 700, 000 doses could land by weekend to reinforce ongoing administration of the second dose of the vaccine.

However, it has not been formally confirmed which country is giving what number of doses with a senior official at the Ministry of Health choosing to keep the matter close to his chest.

“Let us wait until it is announced officially so that we can release the names of the countries donating to us,” said the official who sought anonymity. 

However, from other sources, Greece; Serbia and Spain are some of the countries willing to share their vaccine stocks.

In his daily Covid-19 report update yesterday, Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe said 582,391 people have already taken their second dose of the vaccine. Phase two of the immunisation programme started on May 28.

Adult population

Most of those who have taken their second dose are persons in the priority list.

“As of today, a total of 1,620,465 vaccines have so far been administered across the country.

Of these, total first doses are 1,038,074 while second doses are 582,391,” the CS said.

Uptake of the second dose among those who received their first is at 56 per cent with majority being males at 55 per cent while females stand at 45 per cent.

“The proportion of adults fully vaccinated is 2.1 per cent,” he added.

At the same time, the CS yesterday announced that 15 patients had lost the battle to the disease.

Three  of the patients  died in the last 24 hours while 12 are late deaths reported after conducting facility record audits in the month of May, June and July. 

“This has pushed the cumulative fatalities to 3,775,” he added.

 The government is targeting to vaccinate 27,246,033 of the adult population.

Dr Willis Akhwale, chairman of the Vaccine Deployment Task Force said demand for the uptake of the second dose of  AstraZeneca is increasing every day. 

“About half of the people who were inoculated in the first phase have so far received their second jab.

We are expecting coverage of vaccinations to go up to 70 per cent this coming week,” he told People Daily in the weekend.

He said the government is banking on the arrival of the next consignment of vaccines from some European countries, hopefully by Saturday, to ramp up the vaccinations. This is clear from the vaccines the country has received so far, he noted.

Since March 3, the country has received 1,733,100 vaccine doses with 1,120,000 from the Serum Institute of India alone, an additional 72,000 from South Sudan while 258,700 were received from Denmark and 182,400 from France.

According to Dr Akhwale, so far, Nairobi is leading at 203,554 of all the adults vaccinated out of the targeted 3,052,494, an estimated 6.7 per cent.

“Nyeri is the second best at five per cent, followed by Uasin Gishu (3.9 per cent), Laikipia (3.2 per cent), while Embu (2.4 per cent) and Kisumu at 2.2 per cent,” he added.

Kakamega is at 2.2 per cent of the adult vaccination with 15 counties, most of them in the nomadic North Eastern, not doing well.

In Baringo, for instance, there are 4,403 people, which translates to about 1.3 per cent, who have received the second dose against a targeted population of 338,937.

Dr Akhwale further noted that it is not understandable why Bungoma has vaccinated only 7,009, which is about 0.8 per cent yet it has one of the highest adult targeted population of 843,735 persons. “I can’t understand why they are not vaccinating,” he said.

Priority groups

Concerning the priority groups, data shows that as at July 17, 50.9 per cent of healthcare workers, 24.7 per cent of teachers and 7.0 per cent of the population above 58 years have fully been vaccinated.

So far, 106,100 health workers out of the targeted population of 208,418 have received the jab.

“As at Saturday, 46, 214 security officers had been vaccinated in the second phase with 81, 578 teachers out of the targeted 330, 671 being vaccinated.

Those aged 58 years and above whom have received their second jab, are 181, 225 out of 2, 594, 585 of the total targeted population.

“While 165, 874 others had been vaccinated by Saturday. So far 580, 991 out of 3, 133, 674 targeted population of the priority groups, about 18.5 percent have been vaccinated,” the report indicates.

Yesterday, Kagwe said 323 people tested positive from 3, 676 tests conducted in the last 24 hours.

“This brings to total 192, 758 confirmed positive cases from a cumulative tests of 2, 053, 912 so far conducted.

Nairobi recorded 166 positive cases followed by Mombasa at 41 Kilifi (31) and Busia 24,” he said.