The Media Council of Kenya (MCK) is lobbying county governments to consider vaccinating journalists against the ravaging Covid-19 following rising cases of infection against media practitioners, which resulted in two deaths last week.

MCK through its CEO David Omwoyo, has written to the Council of Governors (CoG) and the County Assemblies Forum, requesting them to facilitate prioritization of vaccination of accredited journalists and media workers in counties whose work has left them exposed to the virus, and who were categorised as essential workers.

“Following the outbreak of Covid-19 globally, the government of Kenya announced containment measures and related interventions including lockdown, working from home, sanitizing, wearing of facemask.

Media was identified as essential service provider hence required protection and support,” Omwoyo said in a letter sent to CoG chairman Governor Martin Wambora and CAF chair Speaker Ndegwa Wahome.

He added: “In the view of the aforementioned, we kindly request that your office helps on ensuring that accredited journalists and media workers are given a priority while administering the Covid-19 vaccination at the county level as a way of ensuring their safety as they discharge their duties.”

Vaccination campaign

The government through the Ministry of Health have for the past two weeks been running a vaccination campaign targeting the frontline workers such as healthcare professionals, teachers, and security personnel, after it  received over one million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine through the global COVAX facility

Due to their nature of work, other than reporting on Covid-19 related news, journalists are sometimes embedded to politicians who have  been accused of recklessness by organising rallies and other gatherings they require media coverage as well as visiting and interacting with people in facilities and areas prone to the pandemic.

Last week, two veteran journalists, Robin Njogu who was a Managing Editor at Royal Media Stations and former broadcaster Winnie Mukami died to coronavirus related complications while several other journalists were hospitalized after getting diagnosed with the deadly virus that has so has killed close to 2000 people and infected over 100, 000 others.