Kenya Receives 72,000 Doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine from South Sudan

Kenya has received 72,000 doses of the AstraZeneca Covishield vaccines from South Sudan. 

A Kenya Airways flight carrying the consignment arrived at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) on Saturday evening.

The vaccines were received by officials from the Health Ministry and were ferried to National Vaccine Depot in Kitengela, from where they will be distributed to vaccination centers across the country.

The jabs were received through the COVAX vaccine dose-sharing strategy, where countries with logistical challenges, hesitancy, and lack of infrastructure return vaccines to the mechanism for redistribution to other countries with adequate capacity to administer them before expiry.

The 72,000 shots, which have a shelf life up to July 17th, are part of the 132,000 doses of the vaccine South Sudan received in late March from COVAX. 

The country has only managed to administer less than 8,000 shots due to slow uptake by health workers, delays by parliament to approve the vaccine’s use, and a lengthy training of people to administer the vaccine.

Kenya has so far inoculated 968,733 people against the virus with the Health Ministry urging Kenyans to go for the second dose only upon receiving a notification from the Chanjo system.