Vaccination drive bears fruit within informal settlement
A 71-year-old man battling hypertension was among the over 100 residents of Nairobi’s Gatwekera village in Kibra constituency, who received their first dose of vaccine against Covid-19 yesterday.
Robert Okwanyo Oloo was given a clean bill of health by his doctor at the Shining Hope for Communities (Shofco) clinic after his blood pressure was recorded as stabilised.
“The doctor said it is now safe to go for the Covid vaccine,” Oloo said with a smile, further demonstrating that the government’s renewed vaccination campaign through community outreaches is gradually bearing fruits through support of partners.
Unending myth
On Monday, the Ministry of Health reported that 3.9 million had so far been vaccinated where 3 million are partially immunised and 947, 543 fully inoculated.
While some of the elderly people in Kibra fear to get vaccinated for fear of dying from the Covid jab, another unending myth, Oloo believes it is the best way to survive the pandemic.
“It is important for some of us who cannot go far for the vaccine. Getting vaccinated is important because I will be able to withstand the disease’s severity,” he said.
Shofco; a Ministry of Health partner, was rolling out its vaccination programme in the informal settlement yesterday starting with Kibra in a phased programme.
Gladys Mwende, the organisation’s Chief Programmes Officer said rolling out the AstraZeneca vaccination is aimed at supporting the government in its commitment to have 5.8 million Kenyans vaccinated by October 20 and 10 million people by the end of the year.
“We felt that it was wise to bring the vaccination programme closer to the people,” she said.
It took a few months for the ministry to approve the organisation’s application to conduct community outreach vaccination campaigns.
The organisation’s director of health- Emma Ingaiza said initially the population in Kibra was not prioritised, but when an outreach was conducted, there was a huge turn out until some clients had to be sent away, because of social distancing issues.
