Kenya to vaccinate 26 million adults by March 2022
At least 26 million adults will be jabbed against Covid-19 by March next year, the latest projections on vaccinations by the Ministry of Health shows.
According to the Ministry, the changes are attributed to the availability of enough doses currently and ongoing campaigns urging people to turn out in large numbers to receive the lifesaving jab.
Initially, the plan was set at 26 million people by the end of 2022.
In addition, the Ag Director of Preventive and Promotive Health Services Dr Andrew Mulwa said the country is expecting at least 12 million doses before the end of this month, which would be enough to meet the targets.
“We have had challenges in the supply chain for Covid-19 vaccines in this country in the early months but I can stand here and confirm that even the 10 million vaccines that we had targeted to have by December this year we already have 9.3 million vaccines in the country,” Dr Mulwa said on Thursday.
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He added that “We have some 12 million vaccines in the pipeline so our target of reaching 27 million by end of December 2022 has been brought forward to March 2022 because the vaccines are here and we will have the vaccines not by the end of the year but the end of this month.”
As of November 10, over 5.8 million vaccines had been administered across the country. Of these, 3,842,614 were partially vaccinated while those fully vaccinated were 1,970,939.
The uptake of the second dose among those who received their first dose was at 48.2 per cent.
The proportion of adults who are fully vaccinated was 7.2 per cent.
Dr Mulwa further urged the public to continue adhering to the Covid containment measures even as the country moves towards flattening the curve.
“We also want to open the economy and you have seen what has happened in the last few weeks and we want to continue with that momentum so that we restore livelihoods.”
In the last 24 hours, the country recorded 94 new infections, from a sample size of 6,765, posting a positivity rate of 1.4 per cent.
Data from the Ministry of Health shows one patient succumbed to the virus, a late death report after conducting facility record audit in the month of November 2021.
