The United States government delivered 1.17 million extra Johnson & Johnson doses to the Ministry of Health on Friday.
On Saturday, another 1 million doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine were expected, bringing the total quantity of COVID-19 vaccines supplied by the US to 6 million.
The COVAX facility has delivered a total of 22,280,820 vaccines to the country, with an estimated 8 million of them being used.
Dr Willis Akhwake, Chairperson of the National COVID-19 Vaccine Deployment and Vaccination Task Force, received the shipment of Johnson and Johnson vaccines at Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.
According to a statement released by Kenya’s Ministry of Health on Friday, Akhwale commended the US government for assisting Kenya’s efforts to speed vaccination “in the hope of achieving herd immunity to prevent the virus from spreading.”
The task force applauded the hospitality industry for complying with a government demand that all guests entering hotels after December 21 be fully vaccinated.
Kenya wants 10 million adults to be fully vaccinated by December 25.
However, the country is falling short of its goal, having only administered 7.9 million vaccines and having just 3.1 million individuals fully vaccinated.
