Kenya receives 1.36 million doses of Pfizer vaccine from US

Kenya on Monday received a further 1.36 million doses of Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine.

The consignment received by the Ministry of Health officials was a donation from the US government through the COVAX facility.

The donation comes a month after the country received another consignment of Pfizer vaccine from the US.

In December, Kenya received an additional 1,000,176 doses of Pfizer vaccine.

The arrival of the doses increased the number received in the country to 23,279,646.

This is an addition to the 739,440 doses that were available at the Central vaccine store Kitengela as of December 9.

The first batch of 795,600 doses of Pfizer vaccines arrived in the country on September 17, and another donation of 210,600 doses arrived later.

The consignment of one million doses of the Pfizer vaccine pushes the US donations to over six million.

Data from Pfizer vaccine studies show the vaccine is safe and effective for people as young as 5 years old.

The Pharmacy and Poisons Board a few weeks ago approved the use of Pfizer vaccines for people aged between 15 and 18 years-old.

The government of Kenya aims to have at least 27,246,033 people vaccinated by end of the year.

As of January 23, a total of 11,553,637 vaccines had so far been administered across the country. Of these, 6,320,249are partially vaccinated while those fully vaccinated are5,081,189.

Another 36,792 are doses administered to those between 15 to 18 years while 115,407 are booster doses.

The uptake of the second dose among those who received their first dose was at 60.7 per cent.

Proportion of adults fully vaccinated was 18.6 per cent.