Kenya on Monday got a second shipment of 880,000 doses of Moderna vaccine from the US as the country’s jab receipts surpassed the five million milestones.
The gift comes days after Nairobi received 141,600 doses of Johnson & Johnson vaccine it obtained from the African Union (AU) and another batch of 55,000 doses given by Latvia over the weekend.
The overall quantity of Covid-19 vaccinations received by the Health ministry so far stands at 5,146,710 and there are additional deliveries anticipated in the coming weeks.
The ministry recently revealed to the Nation that it was receiving two million doses of Sinopharm vaccine supplied by China.
“We have been offered approximately 1.8 million doses of Pfizer by the US. We will also be receiving 300,000 doses of AstraZeneca dosages which will be provided by Spain and 200,000 doses of AstraZeneca from Poland,” the ministry said in report obtained by NCMP
The jabs have been flooding in as Kenya grapples with a resurgent Delta variety that has struck populations in cities and villages, bringing death in its wake.
As of yesterday, 4,795 individuals have succumbed to Covid-19. More than 1,825 individuals were hospitalized to different health institutions nationwide, while 4,546 are under the home-based isolation and care program.
A member of the Covid-19 vaccination task group told the Nation that they were intending to ramp up jabbing by educating additional health professionals as the government fights to avoid potential expiration of the vaccines.
“The goal is to expand the number of vaccine locations from 800 to 3,000 with a view to vaccinating 10 million Kenyans by the end of the year,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity since he is not allowed to make press comments.
As of Sunday, the nation has given a total of 2,870,392 doses. Of them, total first dosages are 2,057,080 while second doses are 813,312. The uptake of the second dosage was at 39.5 per cent, with the majority being men at 55 per cent while the percentage of adults completely vaccinated was three per cent.
To prevent losses, the ministry said it will start on updating and installation of a new cold chain system.
“We have to guarantee that the amounts we get are properly kept in our different depots throughout the nation and that the distribution works smoothly,” the ministry said in a statement.
Although Pfizer and Moderna are mRNA vaccines, they need different storage conditions.
The Pfizer vaccination must be kept under ultra-low temperatures between -90 degrees and -60 degrees Celsius whereas Moderna is stored at -20 degrees Celsius.
From the regional depots, Kenya uses a diversified strategy to distribute vaccinations to different counties. Some counties collect their batch from the closest regional depots while others like Kisumu, Mombasa and Kilifi have the jabs supplied to them by air.
As per the government’s official vaccines deployment and immunization strategy, distribution follows current distribution patterns, from national to sub-county levels.
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