Kenya has now received 1.02 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, manufactured by India’s Serum Institute.
Kenyan Health Minister Mutahi Kagwe, quoted by the Associated Press (AP) news agency, said vaccines will be given to about 400,000 health care workers, with the rest being allocated to front-line workers such as teachers and police officers.
“We have been fighting the pandemic with rubber bullets, but what we have acquired today is equivalent, metaphorically speaking, to bazookas and machine guns,” hailed Kagwe.
According to United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) spokesman Andrew Brown, the shipment delivered to Kenya on Wednesday is part of a 3.5 million dose order from the East African country.
Kenya has so far counted more than 106,000 cases of infection, including 1,800 deaths.
Health workers have shown their discontent with the inadequate supply of personal protective equipment and point out that they have never received the allowances promised by the government for the extra work and risk in fighting covid-19.
Rwanda received 240,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine today, and is due to receive another 102,960 doses from Pfizer, making it the first African country to receive doses from this pharmaceutical company.
The vaccine needs to be stored at very low temperatures, making it difficult to distribute in hot countries or rural areas.
Covax aims to deliver 90 million doses of vaccine to the African continent by the end of this month
According to Rwandan Health Minister Daniel Ngamije, the government’s goal is to vaccinate 30% of the population by the end of this year and 60% by the end of 2022 in the country that has recorded 19,111 cases since the pandemic began, including 265 deaths.
The kingdom of Lesotho, which officially counts more than 10,000 infections and 295 deaths, received 36,000 doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine on Wednesday.
So far, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Angola, Gambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRCongo) have also received their first doses of the vaccine delivered by Covax, with other countries such as Mali, Senegal, Malawi and Uganda expecting to receive the formula later this week.
The Covax platform aims to deliver 90 million doses of vaccine to the African continent by the end of this month. By the end of May, it plans to deliver 237 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines and 1.2 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine.
Founded by the WHO, in partnership with the Vaccine Alliance (Gavi, chaired by former Portuguese prime minister José Manuel Durão Barroso) and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (Cepi), Covax aims to ensure vaccination to 20% of the population in 200 countries and has agreements with manufacturers for the supply of two billion doses in 2021 and the possibility of buying another billion.
The director of the African Union’s African Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), John Nkengasong, warned last week that at least 60 percent of the continent’s 1.3 billion population needs to be vaccinated.
“We will be known as the covid-19 continent,” the director of the African organization pointed out.
Covax has faced delays related to the supply of the vaccines, which are limited globally, as well as logistical constraints.
Given the platform’s inability to provide all 54 African countries with the doses needed to achieve group immunity, some states, such as South Africa, are attempting to secure vaccines through bilateral agreements or through the African Union’s bulk-buying program.
