Kenya welcomes US decision to relax COVID-19 vaccine patents » Capital News

NAIROBI, Kenya, May 6- Kenya has welcomed the position by the United States on relaxing the COVID-19 vaccines patents.

Tourism Cabinet Secretary Najib Balala said the international community should now lobby the major pharmaceutical companies to accept and support the move to facilitate the production and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, particularly in Africa.

He said tourism, travel, and hospitality industries which have suffered most from the pandemic, desperately require most of the world population to be vaccinated for them to re-open their businesses with the confidence that visitors will be safe.

He specifically said Africa, needs to safeguard lives and livelihoods in the tourism and hospitality industry, “and fully supports the US move to waive Covid-19 vaccines patents because we do not want the continent to be left behind in the rolling out of the vaccines under the new dispensation.”

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has since temporarily lifted patent protection for coronavirus vaccines on the request of India and South Africa.

India and South Africa said this would increase vaccine production around the world.

Kenya has so far vaccinated more than 800,000 people using the Astra Zeneca Vaccine an is now sourcing for Pfizer and John and Johnson following challenges in getting Astrazenecca from India which is experiencing high infection and death rates.

On Wednesday, Kenya said that it had detected cases of the Indian covid-19 variant days after banning flights from the country.

Health Ministry’s Director-General Dr Patrick Amoth said the cases were detected in Kisumu.

“Regarding the Indian double mutant virus, yes, this virus has been picked in Kenya and because of global connectivity, it was just a question of time. You cannot be able to put barriers to prevent a virus from accessing your country. We picked this from a sample of Indian travelers who were doing some work in the Western part of Kisumu,” Dr Amoth said.

The new variant, now known as the double mutant, has also been found in several other countries across the world, including the United States.

The announcement on the India variant was made days after the country eased restrictions imposed in March when a high infection rate was reported.