US ships Moderna vaccine to Kenya amid delta variant surge
Kenya has today received 880,460 doses of Moderna COVID-19 vaccine donated by the United States government through the UN-backed vaccine sharing platform COVAX even as the country battles surging cases of the delta variant.
The 880,460 doses are the first batch of 1.76 million doses that Kenya expects to receive from the.
The Moderna shipment also marks the second brand of vaccine available in Kenya’s fight against Covid-19, the first being the Oxford-AstraZeneca.
The country expects to start receiving Pfizer brand of vaccines from the US beginning September.
The consignment arrived at JKIA at 6.15am on Monday and was received by the Ministry of Health officials among them Chief Administrative Secretary Dr Mercy Mwangangi, Principal Secretary Susan Mochache, acting Director-General Dr Patrick Amoth, as well as COVID-19 vaccine taskforce Chairman Dr Willis Akhwale.
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PS Mochache said “we are very grateful to the US government for this generous donation of Moderna vaccines. This will greatly support the ongoing roll-out of Kenya’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign and help us reach the target announced by President Kenyatta to vaccinate 10 million Kenyans by the end of December 2021.”
She added that “vaccination is now open to all Kenyans over the age of 18. I would like to emphasize that all WHO and the government of Kenya approved vaccines, including the AstraZeneca and Moderna vaccines, are safe and effective. Members of the public will receive available vaccines at the health center they visit, upon registration in the chanjo system, portal.health.go.ke.”
So far, Kenya has received 3.6 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine.
The World Health Organization has so far approved six Covid-19 vaccines for emergency use, including AstraZeneca and Moderna.
Earlier, Moderna had shown an efficacy rate of 94.1 per cent at preventing symptomatic infection in people with no evidence of previous COVID-19 infection, however, the rate dropped to 86.4 per cent for people ages 65 and older.
Meanwhile, the country has also received freezers with the capacity for storing three million doses, and another 15 are expected from American firms UPS to store the Pfizer vaccine.
The freezers will see the country grow her vaccination posts from 800 to 3000 in the counties.
