Mombasa County government has expressed alarm over a sharp drop in the Covid-19 vaccine uptake following the government’s decision to lift all the containment measures.

Last week, health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe relaxed a number of measures including the wearing of masks in public places.

And yesterday, Mombasa County Public Health Chief Officer Pauline Oginga (below) expressed fear the low uptake of the Covid-19 jab may see thousands of doses expire. “It was a very good announcement, but how the public received it is different, this has forced us to create demand by going to the streets, because we want people to get vaccinated.”

The county has now been banking on extensive community outreaches so as to rally the public to get vaccinated in order to contain the further spread of the virus. Oginga says so far, the county has returned about 40,000 expired doses following the low uptake in the Coast region in general.

 “The doses that were returned are 40,000 doses and it is not Mombasa alone, many other regions have returned them to Kemsa,” said Oginga adding only foreign tourists are turning up at vaccination centres.

The county department of health says since the pronouncement by the Health CS, only 5,000 had showed up to be vaccinated. In addition, only 223 people got their booster shots, a situation, according to Oginga, could lead to the rise in community transmissions. “We are experiencing a lot of apathy from members of the public since the pronouncement, the churches which had initiated vaccination programmes have canceled them,” said Oginga.