Kenya eyes 1.7 million Pfizer doses from the US
Talks are underway between Kenya and the US to accelerate timely delivery of 1.7 million doses of Pfizer vaccines are delivered in the country as soon as possible.
The two-dose vaccine which is said to have an efficacy level of at least 91 per cent against Covid-19 is expected to be a major boost to the vaccination exercise in the country.
“This is important so that all the countries around the globe can be at the same level in term of vaccination coverage,” head of vaccines deployment taskforce Dr Willis Akhwale said.
Kenya is among the countries listed to receive part of the 55 million Covid-19 vaccines from the US which will be shared globally.
About 14 million doses of the 55 million vaccines are to be shared with regional priorities and other recipients including Kenya.
“We are moving from the period when we have been experiencing scarcity to when we should have adequate doses,” Dr Akhwale said.
Health ministry added that the country is set to receive an additional 271,000 doses of Pfizer through the UN-backed Covax facility.
Last week the government received over 182,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine donated by France to the Covax facility.
Meanwhile, statistics from the Health Ministry show that as at Wednesday July 14, a total of 1,030,853 had been vaccinated with the first dose while the total number of vaccines administered across the country are 1,565,344.
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The proportion of Kenyan adults fully vaccinated against Covid-19 with the AstraZeneca vaccine is just two per cent.
“The uptake of the second dose among those who received their first dose is at 51.8 per cent with the majority being male at 55 per cent while females are at 45 per cent,” Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe said.
A total of 101,020 healthcare workers are now fully vaccinated with 74,206 being teachers, 42,350 security officers, 165,200 are the people aged 58 years and above while the remaining 151,715 are members of the public.
