Health Cabinet Mutahi Kagwe says 24 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine will be in the country by the second week of February.
According to CS Kagwe, frontline healthcare workers are going to be accorded priority followed by teachers.
Speaking in Mukurweini, Nyeri County on Wednesday, Kagwe said the government has procured the doses and will be allowing the private sector to procure more doses to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There are three sources of the vaccine; the first one will be the government order of vaccine that we have already placed as the Kenya government, the second is through CDC- Africa which also has a purchasing platform organised by African countries and the third source of vaccines will be the private sector,” said Kagwe.
The Health CS said the government will be procuring AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine following approval by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Kenya government.
Scientific reports indicate that the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is easier to transport and to store than the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, which has to be stored at -70 degrees Celsius.
The United Kingdom became the first nation to inoculate people with the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine outside of trials on Monday.
