Kenya ready to deploy multiple Covid vaccines

The country is ready to roll out multiple Covid-19 vaccination amid increasing demand from those seeking to get vaccinated against the disease. 

Yesterday, the Ministry of Health announced a 41.4 per cent uptake of the second dose among those who received the first jab.

To actualise this plan, the ministry announced that the country is expecting two million doses of Pfizer vaccines; 390,000 doses of the Johnson and Johnson, and at least 700,000 doses of AstraZeneca. Also in the pipeline are two million doses of Sinopharm vaccine from China. 

Health Cabinet Secretary  (CS) Mutahi Kagwe said that as of Saturday, a total of 2,742,199 vaccines had been administered across the country.

“Of these, total first doses are 1,939,688 while second ones are 802, 511,” he said.

The CS said majority of the vaccine consumers are males at 55 pe rcent while females are 10 per cent. “The proportion of adults fully vaccinated is 2.95 per cent,” Kagwe added.

During a virtual media round-table last week, Head of the National Taskforce on Covid-19 Vaccine Deployment- Willis Akhwale, said the government has put in place requisite infrastructure to enable multiple vaccines deployment across the country.

His assurance came two days after 880,460 of Moderna vaccines landed in the country on Monday. 

On the same day, the government also received 12 ultra-low temperature freezers of -70 degrees centigrade from the Japanese International Cooperation Agency with a storage capacity of three million doses.

“The country is also expecting 15 portable freezers from UPS foundation that will be used to transport the vaccines at the required temperatures,” Akhwale said.

Kagwe also announced that 16 people died of Covid in the weekend. 

At the same time, 363 people tested positive from a sample size of 4,594 tested in the last 24 hours. “The positivity rate is now 7.9 per cent,” Kagwe added.

A total of 1,967 patients are admitted in various health facilities countrywide.