• The doses expected have a shelf-life of one month. This means they are expected to expire at the end of June.
• All vaccination centres will remain open this coming weekend to enable the exercise of administering the second dose to be conducted without hitches.
Kenya has called on Covax and Gavi to fast-track the redistribution of unused AstraZeneca doses to countries that are able to use them, so they do not expire.
The administration of the second dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine is expected to start this week.
There are about 100,000 doses of vaccine left and the government has received an additional 130,000 doses from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The vaccines from DRC arrived in Nairobi on Thursday morning. DRC has said it is unable to administer about 1.3 million doses before expiry on June 24.
As of Saturday, 952,967 Kenyans had received their first dose of the vaccine – 163,917 healthcare workers, 149,958 teachers, 80,515 security personnel, 289,574 people aged 58 years and above while 269,003 are other members of the public.
“We have also received information about the United States of America willing to give 60 million doses to other countries and Kenya requires about one million doses to vaccinate those who had received the first dose,” Health CS Mutahi Kagwe said.
The ministry revised the vaccination schedule by an additional four weeks after the second consignment of the doses under the Covax facility failed to come due to global supply chain uncertainties and the second wave in India.
The CS said the inequities in the availability, access and distribution of vaccines remains a concern.
"Further to our reorganisation and planning, we intend to mop up doses of vaccines countrywide that have not been used so far in this first phase. The cumulative available doses will enable the country to start off our second dose vaccination by the end of next week," Kagwe said.
The doses expected, however, have a shelf-life of one month. This means they are expected to expire at the end of June.
As a result, all vaccination centres have been urged to remain open this coming weekend to enable the exercise of administering the second dose to be conducted without hitches.
Those eligible will get a notification from the Chanjo system.
Kagwe now wants the vaccine production approval system to be redesigned to create a level playing field in processing applications for World Health Organization prequalification even as quality is ensured.
“We need a paradigm shift to have an approach that provides technical assistance and facilities production of quality products in the African countries,” the CS said.
The government plans to acquire additional vaccines to ensure at least 60 per cent of the Kenyan population is vaccinated by June 2022 to attain herd immunity.
“In this regard, the procurement agreement through the African Union for 30 million doses of the Johnson and Johnson vaccines is almost complete.”
The CS said the Johnson and Johnson vaccine would be the best alternative since it comes with the added advantage of being a single dose regime.