• About 3.9 million people have so far been vaccinated where 3 million are partially immunised and 947, 543 fully inoculated.
• It took a few months for the ministry to approve the organisation’s application to conduct community outreach vaccination campaigns.
Image: MERCY MUMO
A 71-year-old man who is battling hypertension was among over 100 residents of Gatwekera village in Kibera who received their Covid vaccines on Tuesday.
Robert Okwanyo Oloo was given a clean bill of health by his doctor at the Shining Hope for Communities (SHOFCO) clinic after his blood pressure was marked as stabilised.
“The doctor said it is now safe to go for the Covid vaccine,” Oloo said with a smile further demonstrating that the government’s renewed vaccination campaign through community outreaches is gradually bearing fruits through the support of partners.
About 3.9 million people have so far been vaccinated where 3 million are partially immunised and 947, 543 fully inoculated.
While some of the elderly people in the informal village of the expansive urban shanty fear to get vaccinated for fear of dying from the Covid jab, another unending myth, Oloo believes it’s the best way to survive the pandemic.
“It’s important for some of us who cannot be able to go far for the vaccine. Getting vaccinated is important because I can be able to withstand the disease’s severity,” he said noting that information about the disease - which has so far killed 5, 150 people in the country – is now available everywhere, and people should get vaccinated.”
SHOFCO, a Ministry of Health partner was rolling out its vaccination programme in the informal settlements on Monday, starting with Kibra in a phased programme.
Gladys Mwende, the organisation’s Chief Programmes Officer said rolling out the AstraZeneca vaccination at Centre's clinic is aimed at supporting the government in its commitment to have 5.8 million Kenyans vaccinated by October 20 and 10 million people by the end of the year.
“We felt that it was wise to bring the vaccination programme closer to the people,” she said.
It took a few months for the ministry to approve the organisation’s application to conduct community outreach vaccination campaigns.
“It was a bit of a process to have an approval from the ministry but because our work in the slums especially in the area of health is well documented, even though it took some few months, we finally received approval as a vaccination centre,” Mwende pointed out.
She stated that rolling out the campaign in the informal settlement is important because Kibera is one of the most populated slums in Kenya where social distancing is a major problem.
“The turn-out is good owing to the fact that we got our share of vaccine doses only last week,” she noted.
“We want to make sure that the majority of the community in Kibra is vaccinated and also get education about what the vaccine is about. We also do a lot of clarifications on the importance of the vaccines even as we vaccinate them,” she added.
The organisation’s director of health, Emma Ingaiza said initially the populations in Kibra were not prioritised, but when an outreach was conducted there was a huge turnout until some clients had to be sent away because of social distancing issues.
“But since we are doing it at the centre one of our goals is to ensure that we increase coverage and have more people come to the facility. This has saved time and money for the residents of the informal settlement as they are able to concentrate on their day-to-day activities,” she added.
Emma added that most of the residents in the urban informal settlements might not get time every day to get vaccinated as they go out in search of income in middle- and upper-class settlements where they are involved in menial jobs, vaccination on the site will help to capture more numbers.
“Currently applying to see a possibility of conducting outreaches deeper into the informal settlements so that we can see how to start to take vaccines to the doorsteps of people,” she added.
Rofina Miruka, another resident of Gwatekera confirmed that the strategy by SHOFCO to take the vaccines closer to communities will reach many people.
“Already for those who could not go to vaccination sites such as Otiende in Southlands; Mbagathi and Kenyatta National Hospitals can now safe money they use as fare and even time to do other activities,” she said.
National Covid-19 vaccine deployment task force chairman, Dr. Willis Akhwale said now the government focus is on the encouragement of community outreach campaigns in order to achieve the strict targets.
“We have advised counties to intensify community outreach programmes,” he said noting that other partners such as SHOFCO and Faith-Based health facilities were helping in this programme.
“The goal is to achieve our targets as fast as possible so that we attain the required herd immunity to be able to re-open our economy,” he pointed out.