Kenya has secured 817,000 doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine from the UK government thanks to President Uhuru Kenyatta’s working trip to London.
In a statement on Wednesday, the UK government said the jabs will be shipped to Kenya in the coming days.
“The Oxford-AstraZeneca doses-half through a direct bilateral donation, and half through a UK donation to the COVAX facility-will be shipped from the UK to Kenya as soon as possible in the coming days,” read the statement.
Elsewhere, Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe on Wednesday said the government has acquired 13 million doses of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine to boost the country’s vaccination drive.
The doses will start arriving in August.
At the same time, Kenya will receive 1,760,000 doses of Pfizer vaccines from the US government, 235,000 doses of AstraZeneca from Greece and another batch of 55,000 doses of AstraZeneca from Latvia.
In preparation for the deployment of Pfizer vaccines which require storage at minus 70 degrees, Kenya will also receive 15 Ultra Cold Chain freezers from the UPS foundation within the next two weeks valued at 150,000 US dollars(Ksh16.3 million).
The freezers will be distributed to the central vaccine store in Kitengela and all the nine regional vaccine stores across the country.
Kagwe said the Ministry of Health had put in place mechanisms to ensure that there are no wastages of these vaccines.
As of Wednesday, July 28, the Health Ministry had administered 1,692,793 doses out of the 1,733,100 doses of AstraZeneca that it has received to date.
Total first doses were 1,052, 343 while second doses were 640, 450.
