Kenya to receive 407, 000 vaccine doses from UK Tuesday » Capital News

NAIROBI, Kenya Aug 16 – Kenya will receive 407,000 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine from the United Kingdom Tuesday, having received the initial batch two weeks ago.

British High Commissioner Jane Marriot said the doses are the remaining half of the 817, 000 doses which President Uhuru Kenyatta secured during his three-day visit to London in July.

“I think it has been a really strong partnership between Kenya and the UK on the fight against COVID-19. We have learnt from each other,” she said.`

The consignment which will land at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport will be received by the Ministry of Health officials and those from the UK government.

Kenya received the first batch of the 410,000 doses of the vaccine in July 2021 with the latest consignment set to boost the ongoing efforts by the Ministry of Health to vaccinate more Kenyans.

So far, over 2 million Kenyans have been vaccinated against the virus with plans underway to vaccinate at least 10 million by December.

Kenya is also expecting 1,760,000 doses of Pfizer from the US government, officials said.

A further 235,000 doses of AstraZeneca are expected in the country from Greece with an extra 55,000 doses of AstraZeneca set to arrive in the country from Latvia as part of bilateral donations.

The Covax facility has also allocated Kenya 407,040 doses of AstraZeneca and 271,440 doses of Pfizer.
This besides the 13 million doses of Johnson and Johnson, procured by the government through the AVAT-AU mechanism, whose delivery will start in the coming weeks ahead.

With the donations Kenya is receiving, the Chairman of the Kenya Vaccine Taskforce Dr. Willis Akhwale has noted that the country is on track to build a capacity to vaccinate 150,000 people every day.