NAIROBI, Kenya, Oct 26- Kenya crossed the 5 million mark in the COVID-19 vaccination exercise Monday with a total of 5,029,901 vaccinated.
Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe said of out this, 3,545,060 had received their first jab while 1,484,841 had been fully vaccinated.
Kagwe further said the uptake of the second dose among those who received their first jab was at 39.8 percent.
The Government has said it is working towards vaccinating a targeted population of 10 million people by December out of a population of almost 54 million.
On Monday, Kagwe said 151 people had tested positive for the disease, from a sample size of 7,224 raising the total caseload in the country to 252,839.
The positivity rate stood at 2.1 percent.
COVID-19 fatalities rose to 5,263 after 3 more late deaths were registered.
Kenya is deploying Astrazenecca, Johnson & Johnson, Sinopharm, Moderna and Pfizer vaccines in the vaccination drive.
President Uhuru Kenyatta on Wednesday last week ordered the immediate lifting of a coronavirus curfew in force since March 2020 and unveiled a stimulus package to try to revitalise the battered economy.
The Covid-19 pandemic has hit the East African powerhouse hard, particularly in the vital tourism sector, and led to the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs.
Kenyatta announced his decision to end the dusk-to-dawn curfew to cheers and applause at an event to mark Mashujaa Day, a public holiday to honour those who contributed to the country’s independence struggle.
“With significant progress registered in the containment of Covid-19, it is now time to shift our focus from survival to co-existing with the disease,” he said.
Kenyatta announced a 25-billion shilling ($225 million, 193 million euro) financial stimulus programme from November 1 “designed to accelerate the pace of our economic growth and to sustain the gains already made”.
He said a variety of sectors would be targeted, including agriculture — long the backbone of the economy — as well as health, education, drought response, infrastructure, energy and environmental conservation.
