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Deputy President William Ruto/FILE/DPPS

Capital Health

Get vaccinated against COVID, Ruto urges Kenyans

DP Ruto said it is imperative that as many Kenyans as possible endeavor to get the Oxford AstraZeneca jab noting that being inoculated will help control the worsening virus situation in the country.

NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 25 – Deputy President William Ruto on has urged Kenyans to present themselves at the various vaccination centers across the country and get vaccinated against coronavirus.

DP Ruto said it is imperative that as many Kenyans as possible endeavor to get the Oxford AstraZeneca jab noting that being inoculated will help control the worsening virus situation in the country.

“it is important for Kenyans to get vaccinated, I urge every Kenyan to get vaccinated because it is through the vaccination that we will be able to reduce the severity of the disease and perhaps our fatality rate will decline,” he said on Thursday during an interview on Radio Citizen.

DP Ruto who is yet to be vaccinated himself said that once accorded the opportunity he will get the jab even as he asked those spreading rumors about the vaccine to stop.

“The Cabinet sat and decided that we allow the frontline workers to take the vaccine first. We prioritized the frontline workers first like those in the medical fraternity and so it would have not looked well for me if I was seen taking the vaccine first. When my opportunity comes I will surely be vaccinated,” he said.

Kenya has so far vaccinated more than 40,000 people from the 1.02 million vaccines which were acquired through the COVAX facility.

The Ministry of Health on Wednesday said it had planned to scale up the COVID-19 vaccination and called on more Kenyans to turn up. The inoculation was targeting healthcare workers in the initial stage.

The ministry’s Head of Immunization Programme Dr.Collins Tabu said vaccines have a short shelf life and therefore, require to be utilized on time.

“Once we scale up the vaccination, I hope and believe that more Kenyans will get the jab before the end of next month when we receive the next shipment. Normally, flu vaccinations have short shelf life and it is important that Kenyans come out in large numbers to be vaccinated,” Tabu said.

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AstraZeneca was an early frontrunner in the global race to develop a COVID-19 vaccine but the Swedish drugmaker has in recent days come under intense scrutiny after a majority of the European nations claimed that the jab causes blood clots on most recipients.

Several European countries paused its rollout over potential blood clot risks before later resuming its use. 

The European Medicines Agency deemed the vaccine safe and said it was not associated with blood clotting generally — but added it could not rule out a link to two highly rare forms of clotting, and suggested these risks be mentioned on a warning label.

The AstraZeneca vaccine is still seen as vital to vaccinating the world because of its low price and the fact it can be stored long term at fridge temperatures. 

It uses an adenovirus that causes colds in chimpanzees, modified so it can’t replicate, to carry the gene for a key protein of the coronavirus into human cells.

The cells then produce that protein on their surface, training the immune system should it encounter the real virus.

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