The regional vaccine depot that was burnt down on Wednesday evening in Garissa only stores vaccines and not drugs as earlier reported.
Health executive Hubie Hussein said the depot is run by the Division of Vaccines and Immunisation in the Ministry of Health.
Addressing the press at her office on Friday, Hussein dismissed rumours that the depot belongs to the Kenya Medical Supplies Agency.
“Kemsa have their store elsewhere in Garissa town and it’s intact...What was destroyed by the fire are vaccines,” she said.
Other items destroyed in the fire include fridges, documentation tools, laboratory reagents, computers and a small stock of drugs that included syntocion, ORS, Co-pack and chlorhexidine. It is estimated that equipment and vaccines worth more than Sh1 billion were destroyed.
Hussein said the head of national vaccines and immunisation programme Collins Tabu assured the county of support to ensure immunisation is not interrupted.
She said the national government will supply fridges to store vaccines, 10 cold boxes, 10 vaccine carriers and documentation tools by next week.
“We have already secured a storage lab at the county referral hospital, where vital vaccines and their reagents will be kept,” Hussein said.
Polio vaccination, which is set to start next week, will go on as planned since all the necessary measures have been put in place with the help of the national government and other donor agencies, the executive said.
