The country set to buy Pfizer, Johnson and Johnson vaccines due to Astrazeneca shortage
The head of the Covid-19 vaccines rollout taskforce Dr. Willis Akhwale confirmed that the country is set to buy the Pfizer and Jonson and Johnson vaccines for Covid-19.
Speaking during a media meeting organised by the Editors Guild and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization(Unesco) he said the country has also revised its vaccination schedule and now aims to vaccinate all 25 million adults by June 2022.
That is 9 million more people than the 16 million in the previous schedule.
“Under the African CDC we are at very advanced stages and for us, the vaccines that are available there include the Pfizer, and we expect Johnson and Johnson later in the year to be available,” he said.
He said Kenya is taking a two-pronged approach by procuring through the Africa CDC platform and negotiating directly with the manufacturers.
He said India is also struggling to get raw materials from the United States to make the jab.
“I know for AstraZeneca currently there are challenges but it is true we are looking at Pfizer, we are also looking at Johnson and Johnson and any other that may become readily available as long as it meets our condition that, one, it has WHO approval and second, it is locally registered,” he said.
According to Akwale, Pfizer is also preferable because it can be used to vaccinate children at least 16 years of age, who are considered super spreaders of the disease.
Currently, only the Sputnik V vaccine has been granted emergency use authorisation in Kenya.
“The Pharmacy and Poisons Board is currently reviewing applications from Sinovac vaccine and I understand Pfizer is also preparing its papers. However, the ones that have already been prequalified by WHO are Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca,” he said.
On March 25,2021, India banned further exports of the vaccine to force the manufacturer, the Serum Institute of India, to cater to domestic demand, resulting in a delay in global shipments of up to 90 million doses including Kenya’s 2.5 million doses.
Last week, the Indian-based manufacturer said the earliest they can resume exports is June.
He further said that the country is still engaging Gavi, who is leading the Covax initiative alongside the World Health Organization and Unicef, to unlock the stalemate with India.
He said they had confirmed that Kenya will receive the second dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine next month.
The country will receive 2.5 million doses and vaccinations will begin in early June if everything goes according to plan.
“We had planned to give the second dose after eight weeks because Covax had assured us we’d get the second doses in April. But they later communicated there would be a delay for one month. We are sure we will get them in May and I will even discuss with them today,” he said.
“We can stretch eight weeks to 12 weeks between the first and second dose.”
He said to meet its 25 million adults target, the country must also expand its cold chain and construct new vaccine storage facilities in some counties.
Currently, about 40,000 Kenyans are being vaccinated daily in some 200 select facilities.
Akhwale says, they would raise the number of facilities vaccinating people to 600 in June and later to 2,000.
“There’s a discussion on private sector involvement, but Kenya has decided because all these vaccines are new, we must be on the side of science. So all vaccines imported here must have the WHO emergency use authorisation,” he said.
The country has deliberately avoided creating a high demand for vaccines through mass advertisements because there are only a few doses available for key groups.
“In the next phase we will go into campaign mode and vaccinate at least 150,000 people daily,” he said.
According to the vaccine’s task force, the rollout has also been done carefully to avoid disrupting routine immunisations.
By yesterday, 702,170 people had been vaccinated, according to the Ministry of Health.
