Kenyans will start to receive Covid-19 vaccines from the second week of next month, Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe said yesterday.
Kagwe said the country will receive 24 million doses of the vaccine. “Kenya has ordered 24 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and expects them to start arriving in the second week of February,” the CS said.
He commended Kenyans for adhering to Covid-19 guidelines, leading to low fatalities and infections in recent months. Kagwe however hit out at developed nations such as the USA and United Kingdom, accusing them of buying the vaccines in bulk owing to their high fatalities.
He however noted that this was at the expense of poor countries.
“Due to their financial might, some countries are buying huge amounts of vaccines but it is due to high deaths and infection rate,” he said.
He advised African countries to work towards achieving self reliance on health matters going forward. “We need to put measures in place on how we can start manufacturing our vaccines to avoid being ignored,” said Kagwe.
He spoke only a week after the UK announced that it would help Kenya to prepare the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Astrazeneca and Oxford University.
“It is for us not just our moral duty, but in the British national interest to see Kenyans vaccinated just as soon as we physically, logistically can,” British foreign minister Dominic Raab announced while on a state visit to Kenya.
