One million J&J doses likely to expire in three weeks — MoH

The country is likely to loose one million doses of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine due to expiry.

The single shot doses were removed from the deep freezer due to their popularity. 

The Health ministry on Wednesday said the doses are likely to go to waste should Kenyans fail to show up and utilise them in the next three weeks.

Vaccines deployment task force chairman Dr Willis Akhwale said the vaccines were received in large quantities from the government of Germany through the Covax facility last December.

He said the vaccines require a storage temperature of minus 20 degrees.

“Minus 20 degrees cold chain is also shared by Moderna. That time we also had a lot of Moderna so we thawed J&J (remove from the deep freezer ready for use),” Akhwale said.

He said J&J is popular and the demand has always been high especially among young people.

"We expected to use all these doses but from what we are seeing now there is that danger,” Akhwale said.

The ministry had however said that the J&J doses acquired by the government had been utilised.

It said only a few doses in the northern region of the country were yet to be used having been stored at the required -20 degrees.

In January, Health CAS Mercy Mwangangi said Kenya had 2.2 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine donated through the Covax facility whose shelf life was expiring on February 28.

The doses had been distributed to the nine regional stores for utilisation by counties.

However, data from returns received last week from counties and consolidated by the national government indicated that 940,000 doses had expired.

The ministry data shows that out of these about 570,000 doses were in the regional stores while 270,000 were in the facilities ready for use.

The reports indicate that every county has some expiries with the highest being Nakuru with 35,790, followed by Busia 27,980, Kajiado 25,770, Kakamega 12,870 and Kwale 11,730.

The standard operating procedure requires counties to give their stock status from the facilities by the 10th of every month.

The facilities report to the counties and the counties report to the national Ministry of Health by sharing the information about how many doses were used, how many were wasted and how many expired.

The CAS said complacency has been one of the challenges facing uptake of vaccines in the country.

She says this is attributed to the reduction in the positivity rate and number of Covid-19 admissions.

This has seen the daily vaccination rate reduce from a high of 252,000 recorded early last month to an average of 30,000 to 40,000 daily.

“The uptake of the second dose to ensure full vaccination status is declining. Also, out of nearly 900,000 Kenyans eligible for a booster dose only 270,000 turned up,” Mwangangi said.

The preference of certain types of vaccines is also an issue of concern to the ministry.

“Some declined the AstraZeneca vaccine despite emphasis that all vaccines approved by the World Health organization are effective in the prevention of severe disease,” the CAS said.

Akhwale said they have alerted Covax on the expiries.

"We are going to collect all expired vaccines. We will use centres that have incineration so that they will not be a danger to the environment,” he said.

The ministry said the plan going forward is to manage the supply chains, calling them when it is very necessary to minimise on the risk of expiries.

Similarly, only vaccines with a shelf life of more than four months will be allowed into the country.

(Edited by Bilha Makokha)