NAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 18- The National Taskforce on Vaccine Deployment and Vaccinations has urged medics to strictly follow rules on usage to avoid unnecessary wastage.
According to the task force, once a half-used vial of vaccine reaches the discard time, the remaining doses will be discarded and recorded as wastage.
“While the manufacturer does not assure an extra dose for every vial, the high demand of the vaccine means that these extra doses can be used to vaccinate more eligible people. In practice however, the health workers do not ‘pool’ extra doses from other vials, in order to ensure safety guidelines are adhered to,” the taskforce said in a statement.
The country is targeting an average wastage rate of 10 per cent or less to cater for both areas with low wastage and those with high wastage.
“As such, should a half-used vial of vaccine reach the discard time, the remaining doses will be discarded and recorded as a wastage. This wastage is monitored on daily basis,” the taskforce said.
So far, over 651,650 people have received the COVID-19 jab in the country, more than a month after the exercise kicked off.
Those aged above 58 years constitute the bulk of those who have received the jab with 365,178 of those within the age bracket already vaccinated.
136,084 of those vaccinated are Healthcare workers, 97,786 are teachers while 52,602 are Security Officers.
Men continue to exhibit greater enthusiasm than women in being vaccinated against Covid-19 constituting 56 percent of those vaccinated.
Kenya kicked off the vaccination drive in February with AstraZeneca, after acquiring the initial 1.02 million doses through the COVAX facility.
So far, the disease has claimed 2,463 lives, while the caseload stood at 151, 287 by April 18.
