840,000 AstraZeneca Covid-19 Vaccine Doses Expire in Kenya

The Ministry of Health has announced that about 840,000 AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine doses have expired.

Speaking during a press briefing on Wednesday, Health Chief Administrative Secretary Dr. Mercy Mwangangi said the expired vaccine doses cannot be used, adding that the serum will have to be disposed of.

“Despite our hugely successful campaigns that saw us on certain days able to administer 200,000 doses in a day and more than 3 million over a two-week period the country may not be able to utilize all the AstraZeneca doses available before expiry. We have reviewed data returns from all the 47 counties, preliminary reports indicate that close to 840,000 AstraZeneca doses from the COVAX facility have expired.”

While blaming the expiry of the doses on slow uptake of Covid-19 vaccines by Kenyans, Dr. Mwangangi said Nakuru County leads with 35,000 unutilized vaccine doses followed by Busia (27,980), Kajiado (25,770), Kakamega (12,870) and Kwale (11,730).

“So far, only 270, 000 people have turned up to get the booster doses. We continue to witness vaccine hesitancy following rumors on fertility and further misinformation,” Dr. Mwangangi said.

She appealed to Kenyans who are yet to be inoculated against coronavirus to make good use of available vaccines to protect themselves.

“If Kenyans do not show up and get vaccinated, another one million doses of different vaccines will expire,” she added.

As of Tuesday, a total of 17,374,904 vaccines had been administered across the country, out of which 7,967,097 are partially vaccinated while those fully vaccinated are 7,958,138.