Kenya joins global vaccine race for political pandemics
Mambo Matata
Not to be left behind in the global search for the Covid-19 vaccine, Kenya’s top pharmaceuticals are locked in a cutthroat rivalry for what they say will be the final solution to all that ails the country.
Handcheck and Handouts pharmaceutical firms each claim to have found the vaccine that can prevent and heal the socio-economic ailments and political pandemics that the country has been trying to eradicate for decades without much success.
Both proclaim their drug is so effective that it should be exported to other countries in the region and globally that are facing similar problems as Kenya’s.
But independent sources accuse the two pharms of being barefaced quacks, and their purported vaccines mere concoctions, being sold to raise political capital for 2022.
Nonetheless, the big pharms insist they are selling the real deal and Kenya will soon be out of its long misery if it agrees to buy their inventions.
The firms argue that all previous vaccines and cures, like the one unveiled with a lot of pomp and circumstance in 2010, were ineffective and only they have the answer.
Handcheck touts its BBI Vaccine as the only and lasting solution to the dreaded post-election pandemic that sweeps through the country every five years.
BBI, the pharmaceutical firm says, will also inoculate the country from all other political epidemics and social infirmities that Kenya has been suffering from since it was born, 57 years ago.
“Ni tiba tosha (it is the perfect cure). Just one dose and Kenya will be protected from all pandemics and diseases for life.
No one can stop our vaccine,” said Handcheck’s lead researcher Dr Laila Tinga of the vaccine which he hailed as having a 99.9 per cent efficacy.
Asked about the components of the vaccine, Tinga said it is made up of three parts jobs for the big boys, two parts goodies for governors, one part crumbs for MCAs and a reggae flavour, which he said, will make the pill palatable to the youth.
But the Handouts Pharmaceutical swears its Hustler Nation (HN) vaccine is the miracle cure for all Kenya’s perennial sicknesses.
Its leading scientist, Doktari Deepee, the HN vaccine is exactly what the doctor ordered for Kenya.
He said the vaccine will not only protect Kenya from ever catching what it called the deadly Dynasty disease, but will also cure the country of the raging poverty pandemic and the highly contagious unemployment epidemic.
“My frien’, with HN vaccine, you can say bye bye to the dynasties, poverty and joblessness.
That I can guarantee you,” said Deepee of the vaccine which, like the Handcheck’s, he effusively praised as having a 99.9 per cent effectiveness.
About the vaccine’s active ingredient, the lead scientist mentioned a few wheelbarrows, a bit of cash, many Kelen delegations and a dash of salt, flamboyantly applied, to season the heady potion.
He dismissed the Handcheck’s vaccine as placebo that will expose Kenyans to the Dynasty disease.
The Handcheck, however, defended its drug, even as it accused the Handouts of peddling a worthless 18th Century concoction.
But independent sources alleged that both pharms were leading Kenyans down the garden path with claims of having found a vaccine.
“They are drugs alright, but they do not do what they are purported to do. Ni mchele.
The so-called vaccines are drugs that will send Kenyans to sleep as the two pharms rob them blind and take advantage of them. Then they can laugh all the way to 2022,” said the source.
Another skeptic, whose vaccine was rejected by the powerful pharms a year ago on the grounds that it had not been “peer reviewed”, also dismissed the claims of a breakthrough.
He accused the pharms of unfair monopoly of the industry. “Our Pukuza Mziko vaccine was the perfect solution but they rejected it because of professional jalousies.” – [email protected]
