NAIROBI, Kenya July 31 – Kenya was on Saturday afternoon set to receive 400, 000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine which were donated by the United Kingdom.
The vaccines arrive at a time the country has vowed to strictly enforce COVID-19 containment measures following a surge in infections.
Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe and British High Commissioner Jane Marriot were set to receive the consignment at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.
The consignment is part of the donation of 817, 000 doses that President Uhuru Kenyatta secured during his three-day visit to London this week.
The remaining half of the doses which were donated through the COVAX facility were expected to arrive in the country in the coming days ahead.
Kenya had vaccinated close to 1.7 million Kenyans by end of July. The Ministry of Health says it plans to vaccinate 10 million people by December this year.
Kenya just like many African countries have only vaccinated less than 1.5 per cent of its population.
President Kenyatta has since urged the global community to heighten efforts in promoting equity in the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.
President Kenyatta who spoke to Sky News in London on Thursday said the world can only be safe if everybody gets to be vaccinated against the virus.
“This is something that really needs to be looked at because the fact of the matter is nobody, not here in the United Kingdom or in the United States or in Germany, nobody is going to be safe until everybody is safe. We need to be able to come up with a way of ensuring that there is going to be equity in the distribution of these vaccines,” he said.
President Kenyatta said that the ongoing “vaccine nationalism” is a great impediment towards the fight against the virus that has so far infected close to 197 million worldwide.
He said that Kenya is ready to manufacture the COVID-19 vaccines but regretted that the only challenge is the difficulty Kenya is facing in attaining its own Intellectual Property (IP).
“If we were to be given the IP we would manufacture it in the Kenya Medical Institute Research (KEMRI) in the shortest possible time,” he said.
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