Kagwe: You’ll get Corona jabs from mid this month
Kenyans will start being vaccinated against Covid-19 mid this month, once the first doses arrive in to the country, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has said.
MOH Director General Patrick Amoth said the first phase of the vaccination, which targets 1.25 million Kenyans, mostly frontline and essential service providers including police and teachers, will be administered between the time the vaccine arrives in the country until to June 30.
Phase two of the exercise which targets 9.7 million people majorly the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions, will commence on July 1 and end on June 30, 2021 while phase three targeting close to five Million Kenyans will commence on July 1 and end on June 30, 2023.
“We are going to do this in phases through our existing Kenya expanded programme on immunisation services, “Amoth said.
The details came on the day Amoth admitted that Kenya had flattened the curve but warned Kenyans against dropping the guard on the fight against the virus until all Kenyans are vaccinated.
“If you look at our positivity rate since the beginning of the year, it has been fluctuating, the highest positivity rate was 6.8 per cent on January 7.
The positivity rate for the last two days stands at 4.8 percent,” said Amoth.
During Covid-19 briefing yesterday, hinted that the increasing demand of the vaccine by other countries will determine the specific date the vaccine will arrive in the country.
“We have reports of indicative allocation of the vaccines, under the Covax facility we are supposed to receive 4,176,000 doses of the Astra Zeneca Oxford Vaccine.
This information is with us and based on that, the Covax facility is working very hard to ensure that towards the end of this month, the vaccine will be in the country,” moth said.
“We are discussing with other vaccine manufacturers to ensure that we get it and we are not left out as a country in this war against Covid-19,”Amoth added.
The revelations came on the day 180 more patients tested positive for coronavirus with the Ministry of Health Chief Administrative Secretary (CAS) Rashid Aman saying the new cases were picked from 4,580 samples.
Global variance
On a sad note, the CAS said that four more patients have succumbed to the virus, bringing the total fatality cases to 1,773.
Aman said 145 of the new patients were Kenyans and 35 foreigners. In terms of gender 100 were male and 80 female, the youngest aged two years and the oldest 88.
Nairobi county recorded 99 cases, Kiambu (33) , Nakuru (eight), Kajiado (seven) and Kisumu six.
Uasin Gishu followed with five new infections, Mombasa and Taita Taveta recorded four cases each, Nandi and Nyeri (three), Meru (two) while Busia, Kakamega, Kericho, Kilifi, Kwale and Machakos recorded a case each.
On the global variance, Amoth said Kenya is alert over the new variants namely the UK variant B117, Southe African B1351, Brazillian variant saying two tourists who had tested positive for the South African variant have since recovered and returned to their country.
