Kenya received just over a million coronavirus vaccines on Wednesday in a first shipment from the COVAX initiative, created to ensure that low- and middle-income countries have fair access to coronavirus vaccines.
About 1.02 million doses of the one developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, arrived in Nairobi in the early hours of Wednesday, according to a joint statement from UNICEF, the World Health Organization, the GAVI Vaccination Alliance and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.
Kenyan Health Minister Mutahi Kagwe showed his enthusiasm and optimism that vaccines help slow the spread of the virus that has forced the East African country to partially paralyze its economy with devastating consequences for many citizens.
“We have been fighting the pandemic with rubber bullets, but what we have acquired today is the equivalent, metaphorically speaking, of bazookas and machine guns,” Kagwe said.
The vaccines will be given first to around 400,000 health workers, with the remainder going to others on the front lines of the fight against the pandemic such as teachers and police officers, the minister said.
Many public health workers across the country are unhappy about the lack of personal protective equipment and say the government never paid them their promised allowances for the extra work and risk in fighting COVID-19.
Kenya has more than 106,000 confirmed cases, including more than 1,800 deaths.
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