Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta’s office on Thursday said the country will receive its first batch of COVId-19 vaccines in the first week of March, reported CGTN Africa.
The presidency said in a testament that health-care workers and frontline personnel, including security officers, teachers, vulnerable persons, and those in the hospitality sector, will be the first priority for inoculation.
The statement was released following a cabinet meeting on Thursday. It did not reveal details of the type of vaccines or the quantity of the doses that will arrive next month.
Last month, the Kenyan health ministry said that it was seeking an extra 11 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, in addition to 24 million already ordered that it planned to source from major pharmaceutical manufacturers like Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson.
The health ministry said then that the extra doses will be acquired through the African Union’s disease control and prevention body.
The African Union is assisting its 55 member countries to acquire more doses of the COVID-19 vaccine in a push to immunize 60% of the continent’s 1.3 billion people over three years. Last week, its vaccine team said it has acquired 270 million doses of AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines for delivery this year.
On Wednesday, Ghana became the first African country to secure vaccines through the World Health Organization’s global vaccine-sharing scheme COVAX. It acquired 600,000 doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine developed by the Serum Institute of India.
On Thursday, the Kenyan Ministry of Health (MoH) registered 277 more positive coronavirus cases. This brings the total tally of the country’s cases to 105,057. 119 more patients have recovered, 79 from the Home Based Isolation and Care while 40 are from various health facilities.
The total recoveries are now 86,497. Eight patients succumbed to the disease on Thursday bringing the total fatalities to 1,847. The country currently has 16,713 active Coronavirus cases.
