Why Kenya secured vaccines donation from Denmark

 

Kenya’s effectiveness and efficiency in rolling out the Covid-19 vaccination helped the country secure the donation of 358,700 AstraZeneca doses from Denmark.

Kenya has been able to administer 98.6 per cent of all the doses it has received since March amid reports that some African countries were destroying their own batches due to poor deployment and slow uptake.

The country received 1.02 million doses from the Covax facility and an additional 100,000 doses from the Government of India under a bilateral arrangement.

Kenya also got 70,000 doses from South Sudan under the Covax vaccine sharing mechanism.

By the time the vaccines from Denmark arrived in Nairobi on Monday, there were just 5,000 doses of AZ left in stock.

Kenya's effectiveness in the administration of the vaccine influenced Danish officials to make their first bilateral donation to the country.

“Unicef which was organising the logistics and transport said at least Kenya is one of the countries that has been very effective in rolling out the vaccines that they had already gotten and we want to make sure that we send these vaccines to a country where they can actually deliver and roll out within the time available,” Danish ambassador to Kenya Ole Thonke said.

The vaccines have a shelf life of one month as they are expected to expire on July 31.

In addition, Kenya’s pro-activeness in reaching out to other countries and development partners in an effort to get vaccines to reach as many people as possible also put them up in the list of those to be considered for donations.

“I was called directly by Foreign Affairs CS Rachel Omamo a month ago asking if there is any way the government of Kenya can collaborate on this endeavour. I am looking forward to seeing this being rolled out in all hospitals in Kenya to the benefits of the Kenyan people,” Thonke said.

He added: “Above all, Denmark and Kenya have been strong partners since independence and we are working bilaterally to help each other in any way we can. As you have seen before, we all need international solidarity to deal with the pandemic and I think everybody is trying as hard as they can to help everybody as fast as we can in this difficult situation.”

He said there is enough time to use all the vaccines before they expire.

The vaccines have already been distributed to the nine regional vaccine stores with counties beginning to draw doses for deployment in the various health facilities.

The vaccines will be distributed to both government and private health facilities for quick administration.    BY THE STAR