•Lamu county has so far fully vaccinated 16,328 people, with just 50 people in the county having received booster doses.
•Attacks in the region have seen several people lose their lives despite effort by the government to beef up security in the region
Image: MAGDALINE SAYA
Insecurity in some counties in northern Kenya is hampering Covid-19 vaccines uptake in the region.
The Ministry of Health has therefore launched a mass vaccination campaign to reach more people with vaccines, the target being to exhaust 10 million doses there.
But recent constant attacks in parts of Garissa, Wajir, Lamu and Mandera counties have seen vaccination affected, with the counties continuing to record low numbers.
Attacks in the region have seen several people lose their lives despite efforts by the government to beef up security in the region.
To date, more than three million people have been jabbed in the ongoing mass vaccination campaign nationally, with an average vaccinations rate of more than 220,000 daily.
“One major challenge we are facing in the north, especially in areas of Mandera, Garissa, Wajir and Lamu is insecurity. Just when the campaigns started is when we had the explosions in those areas of course something that is dampening,” said Dr Andrew Mulwa, the head of health promotion at the ministry.
“We still have pockets of hesitancy, misinformation, we have religious groups that still don’t believe in access to conventional medicine so we are dealing with all sorts of things,” he added.
Image: MAGDALINE SAYA
Mulwa also admitted to there being challenges with logistics in terms of moving from one point to another.
Data from the ministry shows that 15 million people have been jabbed to date, and more than half of the country’s adult population has received at least one dose of the vaccines.
Lamu county has so far fully vaccinated 16,328 people with just 50 people in the county have received booster doses.
Garissa, on the other hand, has fully jabbed 46,350 people and administered 157 booster jabs; Wajir has vaccinated 35,580 people and issued 95 booster doses.
Marsabit has jabbed 20,794 with 74 booster shots while Mandera has fully vaccinated 34,377 with 157 booster shots having been administered.
“We also have the obvious challenge where the campaign is happening when people are still working so sometimes to get the communities to come out while they are doing their daily economic activities is also a challenge,” Mulwa said.
According to the Health CS Mutahi Kagwe, the unused vaccines have already been distributed to the counties and are currently being used in the ongoing mass vaccination campaigns that include outreaches.
Kagwe has noted that the majority of the vaccines are Johnson and Johnson, which have a long shelf life, hence are not at risk of expiry while all doses of AstraZeneca with short expiry have been distributed for use in the ongoing campaign.
“We have scheduled the delivery of four million more doses before the end of the month. There should be no reason why any Kenyan should not receive their vaccination and be protected from this ongoing pandemic,” Kagwe said.
To date, 16.5 million vaccines have been administered across the country with 7.7 million being those people who are partially vaccinated and 7.5 million fully vaccinated.
Another 969,769 are doses administered to teens aged between 15 and 17 years while 251,409 Kenyans have received their booster shots.
The plan by the government is to reach at least 60 per cent of the eligible population with the life saving vaccines to be able to attain herd immunity.
On Monday, Kenya’s effort in fighting coronavirus was boosted by the arrival of the consignment of 1,898,910 doses of Pfizer vaccines donated by the US government.
The donation was received on Monday morning at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport by the port’s Health Officer Benjamin Murkomen.
The consignment was delivered by the Covax facility.
In his remarks, Murkomen lauded the US government for its continued support of the country.
US Head of Diplomacy in Kenya Eric Watnik, who was also at the reception of the consignment said that the arrival of the vaccines brings the total dosses donated to Kenya by the US to over ten million.
“The Biden Harris administration is committed to combating Covid-19 around the globe and of course here in Kenya,” Watnik said.